Lott Anniversary Cake

Here's to hoping no one who is attending the party checks this blog before 7 tonight!

(lots of angle pictures on this post friends!)

I suppose I could have waited but I was pretty happy with this one when I was FINALLY finished with it and wanted to get it up right away!

This cake is for Rodney's boss (and her husband) in celebration of their 25th wedding anniversary. The Lott's are throwing a big party for all of their family and friends (us included, woo!) to celebrate with them at The Dallas Arboretum.

Lola choose this design after I sent her a few ideas - her favorite color is yellow and her favorite flavor is lemon. I'm pretty sure I did both of those things justice with this cake!

Each tier (10,8,6) is white cake with lemon zest baked in and a whipped lemon curd filling, coated in vanilla buttercream. The filling is the focal point of this cake. It's probably the best filling I have ever created. I took a lemon curd and whipped it into a bit of plain buttercream. I added a bit of lemon essence and real lemon juice to punch it up a bit. I wanted a whipped filling that still had the same effect that a lemon pie filling has without the jello like quality. It really came out well. Rodney eve said he loved it and he DESPISES anything with lemon in it.

The filling:



This cake brought some new challenges to us. I've never covered a board in fondant before and for some reason I decided now would be a good time to try. I'm very pleased with the way that it turned out so I am glad we did it but I think I need to find a new way of adhering the ribbon to the board. We used corn syrup and I definitely don't think we'll do that again. Here's a good view of the board when I finished it the other day.



This is probably the largest cake we have done so far. Stacking it was a little difficult. We thought we'd doweled it properly and supported it enough but it seems there were a few cracks in the icing here and there once we were finished getting it all together. Luckily, almost the entire cake is covered in fondant circles!



Also the first time I have done a floral topper! Lots of firsts for me on this one! Thankfully the florist I worked with was more than willing to advise me on how many roses to order and how to get it all put together. It turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. I learned that the piece that holds the flowers in (and the water) is called an "igloo." I learned how to handle said igloo and the best way arrange the roses.

I'm overall happy with the way this turned out. Of course, there are things here and there that are noticeable and annoying to me but I doubt many others will take notice of those things.

The one thing I am a bit worried about is making it to the destination in one piece! We will be traveling in rush hour traffice (in hot and HUMID Texas) with a buttercream cake! Please pray that we make it with the cake in one piece!