Topping off 2010

Woah, 2010 just flew by! It has been such an amazing year! To end it, I thought i'd do a little countdown to my top 5 creations of 2010:

5: My ICES show cake

Not only does this cake remind me of the awesome time I had at the ICES convention, all the wonderful people I met, and everything I learned. It also makes me laugh as I think back at what a challenge it was to transport this cake, and its ever so delicate gumpaste mask all the way down to San Diego in my suitcase. If you look closely you can spot a small crack on the mask. I was honestly surprised that was the worst of the damage! I never bothered trying to bring the cake home.

4: Finding Nemo Cake

I just had too much fun making this cake. I had never tried making fish before, so I wasn't sure how it would turn out. I was really pleased with the end result.

3: The Butterfly Cake

People love this cake! Brides keep asking for this design, or a similar one - adjusted to their colour choice. Simple and cute.

2: The cupcake pop!

Everyone knows i'm obsessed with cupcakes. Now, mini ones on a stick?! Really do I need to say more?

1: Duff's birthday cake!

Okay- this cake was not made at Le Gateau Bake Shop, but I did made it at Whole Foods. For those of you that don't know when i'm not busy running my business I spend my time working as assistant manager of the bakery at WF- one of the busiest bakeries in Vancouver.

Anyways, back to the cake. Duff Goldman, from the famed show "Ace of Cakes" was doing an autograph signing at Michaels on his birthday. The good people at Michaels asked your truly and WF to provide a birthday cake for him! At first I jumped at it- I was so excited. Then reality sunk in. I was going to make a cake of the Ace Of Cakes! "The guy". And- make it at Whole Foods, using only natural ingredients. Even food colouring had to be natural. One thing about plant based food colouring, its very unpredictable. To top it off, I had less then 24hrs to come up with it! This would truly be a challenge- a challenge not to embarrass myself it seemed like.So I decided to go for a fresh and natural approach, no fondant!

End result:

Really I was pretty happy about the turn out. I had made all the chocolate panels in record time. When the people at Michaels came to pick up the cake, they were so excited about it they asked if I would present it to him myself! That was the best part. I can honestly say Duff was one of the most awesome persons i've ever met. He was so nice, and fun to be around. I was so nervous, it was almost embarrassing. The whole experience was a great way to end the year :)

Santa's Workshop

I was asked to create an extraordinary gingerbread house for Whole Foods Market. Having made a few gingerbread houses in the past, I knew two things: this would not be easy, and I could not do this alone. So I enlisted the help of my friend Lise Depres, who is an amazingly creative and talented baker that I worked with in the past.

The theme we came up with for the house was "Santa's workshop". The idea was that we would create a house (a min. 3ftx3ft in size) where the front was set up and decorated like your average gingerbread house, and the back was open so you could see inside the workshop with all the busy elves.

One thing I had learned from watching Food Network Challenge was that if you are building an extreme gingerbread house, you were going to need some extra support. So we made a trip to Home Depot for some wood. Lise ended up sawing the pieces of wood to fit herself (superwoman!). Me being an extremely clumsy person, was not going near a hand saw!

Step 1:

The walls of the house were so large, that we had to bake them in multiple pieces and glue them together with royal icing.

See those fancy windows? Gelatin leaves! The perfect glass window.

Next we constructed the second level of the house, along with the stairway.

A fireplace, chimney, and kitchen was also added...

After that came the fun part, decorating!

Taa Daa!!!!

This house will on display at Whole Foods Market Cambie location. There are also 8 other smaller houses on display that are built and decorated by each of the departments in the store, so there's lots of stuff to check out while you do your holiday shopping!

Bling Wedding Show!

Such a fun and fabulous day yesterday at the Bling Wedding Show! The event was held at the National Nikkei Musuem & Heritage Centre in Burnaby, and was organized by Harumi Suzuki of Harumi Signature Wedding and Events. The show featured a pamper room for brides, appies, drinks, and an impressive group of vendors and wedding professionals.
I had such a wonderful time meeting all the bride to be's and grooms, as well as all the talented local vendors and professionals.
Here are just a few photo's for all of you that missed it:

Le Gateau's booth-

Fantastic table settings-

This was my first wedding show, and I loved the whole experience. Really, I just love weddings and im still dreaming and looking forward to my own. But in the mean time, I happy helping other people enjoy there special day :)

Thanks for looking!

Hello Bella Halloween Soiree - October 29th

Le Gateau is excited to be at the Hello Bella Halloween Soiree! A fun and spooky night of pampering, shopping and sweet indulgences. We will be selling spooky cookies and cute cupcakes and cake pops! Limited quantities, so come early!
Friday, October 29 · 6:00pm - 11:00pm, 248 East 10th Ave -parking in lot behind building.
More info at here.

ICES 2010 Hanging 10 in San Diego!

What an awesome experience! This was my first time attending an ICES (International Cake Exploration Societé) convention, but they have been doing this convention for 35 years now. Once a year ICES holds a convention and sugar artists from all over the world come together to share techniques and learn from one another. Most bring display pieces to exhibit. This years convention was held in San Diego, CA.
International Cake Exploration Societe is an organization of sugar artists/cake decorators, 4000+ strong, featuring the best vendors and sugar artists from around the world. The goal of ICES is to promote, encourage, and teach/learn the artistry of sugar. Needless to say, I learned a lot, and met a lot of amazingly talented and inspiring people. People who were so supportive and willing to share any and all information to help others. The society's mission statement is sharing and caring, after all.

I brought down a cake for the cake show. Let me tell you- that was a challenge! I wasn't expecting the cake to make the journey from Vancouver B.C. to sunny San Diego. One of the masks for the cake broke while I was packing my bag! Surprisingly it made it down with only a few scratches and small dents. Too bad the cake didn't make it back home.



There were so many amazing cakes - here are just a few of my favourites:

We will be closed August 10-16th 2010

Le Gateau will be closed August 10 -16. Im heading down to the ICES Convention in San Diego to learn all the latest and greatest in the world of cake decorating. During this time any inquiries can be sent to Tanya@LeGateauBakeshop.com and i'll respond as soon as possible. Thanks!

Happy Birthday, Smashy Smashy!

The concept of smash cakes is still new to me, although I've already done a few this year. For those who have never heard of a smash cake, it is basically what it sounds like it would be - a cake that is meant to be destroyed. Traditionally by children on their first birthday.
I recently made a couple of smash cakes for Nate and Levi's first birthday. Yep- twin boys.
Being a twin myself, I know what a handful and challenge they could be. I wanted to make sure that the guests of the party, and the guests of honour had a special day.
We had a theme of building blocks for the party. The little smash cakes themselves were made to look like building blocks. They were made from vanilla cake and buttercream icing, covered with fondant icing and bears.





Ready, and...



SMASH!



The guests of the party celebrated with a two tier cake. One layer made from chiffon sponge cake, soaked in Grand Marnier and filled with vanilla flavoured Italian meringue buttercream. The other layer was carrot cake made with raisins, walnuts and pineapple filled with cream cheese icing.



And thats not all, each of the guests took home cookie favours! Classic sugar cookies, made to look like building blocks to match the smash cakes.

Baby Boots

It has been just about one year since I started Le Gateau, and can you believe in all that time I have never done a kid's cake? Weird but true. Only weddings or creative cakes for adults. So naturally when I was asked to make a cake for a little boy's first birthday I was excited to do something different.
One thing that I have wanted to try for a while are the adorable little baby shoes that I had seen on so many cakes over the net. These shoes can be totally customized and are great for boys or girls birthdays as well as baby showers.
For little Zeyan's first birthday I decided to go with a little blue converse style shoe. Result:



I was so happy with how they turned out. They were super fun to make as well as super simple! I was lucky because I found this awesome step by step tutorial on you tube that also gave out a template.



As for the actual cake, I made a vanilla chiffon cake with raspberry preserves and vanilla flavoured italian meringue buttercream.

Owl Cups and Cakes!

I am just loving owls right now! The last few times I've had creative licence on orders I find myself just wanting to make owls. Here are a couple examples of my owl creations:

This is a cake I designed for the HELLO BELLA! pamper party:


Its a chocolate cake with chocolate icing.

And, a cupcake set created for a friend's surprise birthday party :



They are chocolate cupcakes with strawberry cheesecake filling, topped with chocolate ganache.