gold Archives - Juniper Cakery | Bespoke Cakes in Yorkshire & the Humber

22nd December 2015 // 0 Comments

Pink and Gold Macaron Studded Naked Birthday Cake!

Owning a bakery and cake design business means that when it’s your birthday you can obviously have any cake you can dream of. So when Felicity’s (one half of Juniper Cakery) 32nd birthday began approaching so did the cake ideas, colour palettes, sketches, various pins, flavour lists etc etc. In the end three things kept appearing in all the different designs… naked birthday cake, macarons and the colours pink & gold. Obviously that led to the glistening beauty featured in this post - a towering buttercream skimmed carrot cake and cappuccino cake adorned with pink Eliza roses, golden silk eucalyptus leaves, 24k gold dusted peanut butter macarons and dainty pink lemonade macarons studded with tiny edible pearls.

Pink and gold themed naked birthday cake!

The macaron shells were prepped a few days before Felicity’s birthday (today) in a pink, pale pink and caramel color palette. Originally there were going to be darker pink raspberry macarons speckled with rainbow confetti sprinkles, but we decided to simplify the cake to help make it a little more on-trend and chic! Flavour-wise the 24k gold dusted (yes… 24k) macarons are ‘Nutter Butter’ filled with a Madagascan vanilla and whipped peanut butter buttercream whilst the pale pinks are our ‘Pink Lemonade’ macarons filled with a pink raspberry and lemon sherbet buttercream.

Aren’t these tall gold candles stylish! They’re from Party Kitsch. We’d spotted them some time ago on Pinterest (as usual - the mecca of inspiration and chic-ness) and made sure to have them ready to finish off the cake because of the various planned gold accents (leaves and macarons). Gold has been quite the ‘it’ colour for a while, but it’s Felicity favourite colour… in fact she has dreams of painting various random things gold.

To decorate the cake we kept going back to the arrangement we used for our famous Black/Pink Forest Gateau Naked Cake which featured a crown of roses and macarons on top of the deep first tier and another crown encircling the top tier! It’s a simple yet elegant arrangement especially for a naked birthday cake. First the organic pink roses were added to the cake with small gaps left between each flower. These gaps were then filled up with glistening gold and pink macarons before the golden silk eucalyptus leaves were added for a little dimension and sparkle.

Sneaky picture of the presents! The cake was finished and photographed the day before Felicity’s birthday so of course it sure was hard for her to shoot everything without being tempted to peek inside those gift bags. In case you didn’t notice the cake, the macarons and all of the gift packaging matches our company branding - white, pink and gold sequins/dots galore! Extra gold elements were added with some sprigs of metallic silk eucalyptus leaves dotted between roses and macarons. Obviously, you can’t have too much gold.

We mentioned earlier the flavours of the tiers, but here’s a more in-depth mouth-watering description… the bottom tier is our soft and light carrot cake made using Chanteney carrots, fresh spices and Lady de Coverly sultanas soaked in King’s Ginger liqueur. The top tier is our cappuccino cake with Fortnum & Mason‘s Queen’s Blend Coffee infused into the batter. Both tiers have been filled and smoothed over with Madagascan vanilla and Callebaut white couverture chocolate buttercream.

10th March 2015 // 9 Comments

Peony Ruffle Wedding Cake with Gold Sequins!

We get excited about all of the cakes we get asked to create, but every so often there’s a cake that comes along that we just can’t get enough off. This wonderfully decadent peony ruffle wedding cake is one of those cakes. It incorporates nature (and lots of lovely green sugar leaves), glistening gold painted edible sequins, textured ruffles and a bit of a carefree feel too!

For this cake the couple weren’t too sure of what they wanted. They knew they’d like a bright and glamorous look with gold sequins to match their venue’s golden table runners and had spotted the trend of gold painted sequin cakes bursting out of the pages of Pinterest. In terms of wedding theme they had opted for a minimal white and gold look with pale floral centerpieces filled with water and gold confetti to tie everything together.

At the consultation we took note of their colour palette and made a few quick sketches and suggestions before a few final details were settled upon fairly quickly. They decided upon a four tiered circle cake with gold sequins and a pale blush pink and white sugar floral bouquet on top. With these ideas in mind we sketched more ideas afterwards and sent them to the couple who quickly picked out the peony ruffled cake with toppled gold sequins and simple yet large open peony arrangement!

To make the wired open peonies we began with gum paste pistils with a full arrangement of dusted medium sized stamens before creating a total of 60 ruffled sugar petals (20 petals per flower) that would surround the centres. For peony leaves we like to create several long slender pieces that get grouped into threes and taped together before they then are attached to the base of the flower so that the natural greens poke out from underneath each bloom.

Our design for the floral cake topper focused on a lovely crescent formation. It helps that there is two of us as this part involves a lot of holding bundles of sugar flowers in position and standing back a good few metres to judge if it’ll work or not. One of our favourite things to do when arranging sugar flowers on a cake is to extend the bouquet out a little further using leaves, blossoms or berries. This helps create a sense of drama and also makes the end design look a little gravity defying!

Simple white frosted berries with moss green and terracotta dusted sugar blackberry leaves were added to incorporate a little interest as well as to extend the arrangement and fill in some gaps.

Creating and utilising gum paste or modelling paste berries is one of our most favourite design elements to include on our cakes. We absolutely love nature; so much so that we named our bakery after our favourite berry. Krystle, in fact, was considering studying Forestry at university before heading off into the wilderness of Canada to live in a log cabin surrounded by herbs, mushrooms and moose.

To balance out the bottom half of the cake with the voluminous florals we created a wonderfully carefree toppled gold sequin effect that revealed a traditional white wedding cake tier before the tier below bursts into pretty blush pink fondant ruffles! Adding edible frills to a cake not only incorporates wonderful texture, but helps make the design look fuller and grander. It’s perfect for small and large cakes too.

What a delight this wedding cake was for us to design and create! We do admit that we wish it was still in our studio so we could still admire it.

4th March 2015 // 1 Comments

Hand-Painted Rifle Paper co. Inspired Wedding Cake!

We love small cakes just as much as towering designs. If there’s one thing we’ve always said it’s that single tier cakes can be just as eye-catching as multi-tier creations. Last weekend we created this hand-painted cake for a wonderfully intimate wedding reception.

The cake itself was our delightfully refreshing and fun lemonade cake with Sicilian lemon oil infused cake filled with Sicilian lemon and lemon sherbet buttercream - one of our most popular flavours for wedding cakes! It’s them crumb coated and iced with marshmallow fondant.

The couple requested bold illustrative florals incorporating striking blush and black anemone flowers, but also wanted a more pretty and rustic inspired colour palette. As their wedding them was generally white on white with hints of blush pink and gold we had a little room to play with! We created different colour palettes first to look at how other colours would work with white, pale pink and gold before sourcing some floral illustrations and paintings to see which the couple preferred.

For the floral style the couple choose some of the Rifle Paper Co. designs we showed them which incorporates, simplified colour schemes, bold strokes and shapes, and illustrative details. We then sat and sketched out a few pattern and motif ideas with the chosen colour palette before the cake was even baked!

Monograms are very on-trend at the moment in the cake world - not just for beautiful wedding cakes. We created an ornate gold-painted frame for the front of the cake before adding a blank fondant insert on which to carefully hand-painted the required letter.

Finally a lovely large organza bow was tied around the cake’s base which adding a little dimension and drama. So that the cake wasn’t over powered by the ribbon we selected a crisp white sheer ribbon and positioned it to the side for a more carefree look.

Hand-painted cakes are a wonderful way to incorporate a certain motif or colour palette to a cake. It also helps tie in a themed party or wedding really well.

6th November 2014 // 0 Comments

Ornate Frame Cake with Gold Leaf, Damson Blossoms & Hypercium Berries!

Here’s an incredibly decadent small frame cake we designed and created for a wedding. For this cake we were pretty much given full creative control with just a few definite design requests from the happy couple that included lots of gold, simple blossoms, a lavish style in terms of overall look and a bit of an autumn/winter feel to the end cake.

With all of the fabulous elements that the couple requested in mind we decided upon a bit of a Rococo (always a favourite) influence combined with a luxurious jewel-inspired colour palette which pairs wonderfully with gold and copper accents.

The small bouquets nestled onto the cake are all hand-made from cmc reinforced sugarpaste / gum paste. Following the request for simple blossoms we picked out the silk taffeta damson-style blossoms from the table centrepieces and invites to use as small arrangements adorning the cake. Each was lightly dusted with shimmering gold lustre dust and further accented with burgundy tinted hypercium berries and sugar leaves.

When we designed the cake a few sketches featured the use of grosgrain ribbon to add a little dimenson to the cake’s decor. This idea came from looking though fashionable attire that straddled both the Rococo era and Baroque for women’s necklaces being tied about the neck with silk ribbons. After initially assembling it was clear a little bit of black grosgrain ribbon with chevron snipped tails was needed.

To a nice element of drama as well as to fulfil the couple’s request for lots of gold we decided to carefully gild the smaller top tier with sheets of edible gold leaf. This also added a wonderful bit of texture and a touch of the rustic look.

Using gold leaf is fairly costly and can be quite the challenge. Applying the edible gold took a fair bit of steadiness as well as minutes of holding one’s breath to complete. Our tips for trying out this technique is to use cake decorating tweezers to lift the top two corners of the sheet, carry it slowly to the cake and drape over the side and top before lightly brushing the leaf on to the tier. Also, don’t wet the fondant covering of the cake before doing so!

It was so sad to see this stunning piece leave us as it is definitely our style of cake from the realistic florals to the lavish usage of gold.

19th September 2014 // 2 Comments

Magnolia and Gold Sequin Wedding Cake!

Here’s yet another cake as part of our latest wedding collection, a Gilded Magnolia and Sequin cake! We’re rather enthusiastic fans of using both gold and edible ‘sequins’ in our work and this more modern design is definitely not an exception. Read on to learn more about what inspired this creation!

We based this design loosely on a stunning gold sequin gown in Elie Saab’s A/W 2012 collection. We simplified the design with plain ivory tiers and large sugar magnolia flowers featuring gold dusted centres. Originally, sugar Juliet roses were to feature perched upon each tier, however, we thought that a more structured floral would work better and also add a more sleek look to the end design.

To add a touch of the romantic we covered and trimmed the board with blush pink fondant and a gorgeously sumptuous liquid gold ribbon finished with our usual double looped bow held with a crystal tipped pin. The board itself ended up being somewhat reminiscent of the Miss Dior Cherie perfume bottles and packaging!

The ‘sequin’ look can be a fairly time consuming and costly process, but it’s certainly worth it if you have the time, resources and patience and if you’re looking for a show-stopping technique! We lost count of how many large bottles of edible gold paint it took to paint this.

We created the magnolia flowers ourselves, as with all of our florals. To begin the process of flower making we always sit down and analyse photographs making notes of texture, sizing, curve, petal count and colour. There are times, however, when a little creative licence is needed so that a particular bloom works with a design rather than against it. These white magnolias were inspired by the Milky Way variety, but instead of the deep pink centres we created them out of ochre gum paste and stamens dusted gold.

We enjoyed creating this design. Even though it is a little bit of a departure from our own personal style, which leans towards more the historical and woodland inspired (think Rococo and Georgian influences with dark Germanic legends and forests), we think it still manages to encompass our typical look but with a touch of the modern thrown in!

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