Cakes Inspired by Textiles

So as of late I have been pretty obsessed with blogs, ranging in subject matter from fashion to (obviously) cakes. A couple days ago I discovered The Caketress at http://thecaketressblog.com and cannot get Lori Huchinson's designs out of my head. Her cakes are what MY dreams are made of. I'm really inspired by her use of texture and the imprinted, textile-look. Oh, and ruffles ruffles ruffles!!!www.thecaketressblog.com

You MUST check out her site. The photos are amazing, plus she has a great layout and cute hair :)


In the same vein, I have a photo of Ashley's wedding dress, as promised. I asked her permission to post this picture, and you know she will look even more stunning in it than this gal, so no element of surprise shall be ruined here.

Ashley had expressed interest in another cake design with layers of fondant reminiscent of the ruching on her dress. We decided to mimic the diagonal movement on the dress and the row of buttons down the back on a tall, slender cake. The design will be simply embellished with strategically placed peonies.

No lie, I'm self-conscious about sharing my sketches of cakes because I feel they are very basic - ie: the stick people drawings of cakes. I have a hard time translating to paper the grandeur of what I'm envisioning in my head by means of a pencil. Ask my old buddy Mallory, I have always drawn for crap, BUT darn good at sculpting, mosaic, etc. I'm hoping with practice this will improve some, which is why I started keeping a sketchbook/journal of sorts. Once I watched one of those Food Network Challenges, and they showed sketches of the competitors cake designs before they started. The team that actually ended up winning had probably the most rough looking, cartoon-like sketch. I remember it looking like it was possibly colored in with crayons. Anyhoo, I saw that and thought "Hey! I don't have to have a beautiful sketch to make beautiful cakes!" Behold:

Cake and cats,
Rachel