Melanie Ferris Cakes News

This was another wedding cake I made last week. The bride and groom wanted this unusual combination of white icing but with plain chocolate ganache dripping down each tier of cake, with chocolate dipped strawberries to decorate. It was for a wedding at Leez Priory on Friday.

This pretty 5-tier cake was for a wedding at Gosfield Hall this week. The cake itself was very simple, but the cascade of fresh flowers was eye catching. I have had to devise a method of keeping the flowers in place without any wires being inserted into the cake, and have come up with a system of attaching a 'sausage' of Mexican paste all the way down the cake and then attaching the flowers to that. The cake is usually displayed at the foot of a grand stair case at Gosfield Hall and so I climbed up and took an 'arty' photo from above as well.

This was the second butterfly cake from last week. This had the Martha Stewart style Monarch butterflies, but in 2 colours of purple, and ivory, to match the wedding colour scheme. The butterflies were placed at random on the cake and from the top they fluttered on silver wires. This was for a wedding at Greenwoods in Stock, on Saturday.

It sometimes seems to me that wedding cakes are like buses: you don't make a particular style for ages and then two or three come along in quick succession. So last week and this week I am making cakes covered in butterflies.

This one was designed by the bride, based on a cake that originally had blossoms on it. The bottom tier is densely covered in sugar butterflies in a dark red, and as they rise up the cake both the colour becomes less intense and the number of butterflies. I think it is really effective.

This was for a wedding at Crondon Park, in Stock, Essex on Bank Holiday Monday.

Last week was a 3 wedding cake week, all of them quite complex and detailed. This was perhaps the simplest, but not the least time consuming and all the brushing out of the royal icing for this technique took several hours. This was for a wedding at Greenwoods in Stock on Sunday and the all white cake was a very considered contrast to the guests in their gorgeous bright coloured and glittering saris.

The topper was provided by the bride and groom and was ingenious. They are made separately but when stood together the bride's arm goes round the groom's neck and the groom's hands round her waist, making it impossible for the groom to fall over. A great relief to a cake maker.

I also made a large eggless cutting cake for this wedding, as well as a tray of cup cakes. I think they had every flavour that I make.

It was gorgeous weather on Sunday and I hope they had a wonderful day all round.

This is the display cake I made for yesterday's wedding fair at Greenwoods in Stock, Essex. It is a 3-tier cake with the top and bottom tier iced in a pale aqua and the middle tier in ivory. The bottom tier has ivory stripes , the middle tier has a pair of appliqued love birds and the top tier has piped embroidered roses in pink and white. The bird cage on top is a lantern, but I have put some sugar butterflies on it.

The cake received a lot of interest at the show, as bird cage table centres and butterflies are very popular at present as a wedding theme.

It is not in my window at the moment as it is on loan, together with two other display cakes, in the window of 'As You Like It', a smart coffee and sandwich shop in Duke Street in Chelmsford. So if you would like to see it do pop along there.

This weekend I delivered and set up the largest wedding cake I have ever supplied. It was 11 tiers of cake, chocolate, vanilla sponge, lemon sponge, fruit cake and carrot cake. The commission gave me the opportunity to use my water fountain for the first time too, so all in all it was a very exciting order.

Here are the cakes, split, filled, iced and placed on boards ready to have the rows of beading piped on them.



And here they are a day later, decorated with the piped beading and stacked up with the pillars required to separate them. This process did take a whole day.



And here is the finished cake with it all assembled on a 4 ft round table, with the fountain working, under the pillared stand I have to go with it, complete with posies of roses and peonies on the top of each of the 5 top tiers and between the tiers with pillars.

Three wedding cakes again this week. This was the first one, a 4-tier sponge cake in ivory icing with tiny sugar hearts appliqued all over the sides, and then sugar fabric draping from tier to tier, caught up on the ledge of each tier with a handmade sugar vanda orchid.

This was for a wedding at Stock Brook Manor, near Chelmsford in Essex.

This was the final cake I made last week. It is 6 tiers (although the bottom tier - 14" across is a dummy). It is all white, with white ribbon round the base of each tier and a cascade of large white handmade sugar roses, each with a diamante in the centre. When cakes are that size I have to take them to the venue in sections and assemble them in situ. To put on the top roses on I had to stand on a stool as it is so tall.

It looked superb set up at Stock Brook Manor, near Chelmsford in Essex last Sunday.

This was the second wedding cake I made last week. A classic stacked cake with a cascade of chocolate roses, but in the prettiest ivory, palest pink and ivory, and pale pink colours. It was for a wedding at Boreham House, near Chelmsford in Essex.