Surf and Turf

This is the second cake for Rebecca's Party this weekend. Her idea was Surf and Turf- Golf on top, scuba on the bottom (that statements reminds me of: Business in the front, party in the back)...

It was nice to have help in completing these master pieces... Not only did Rebecca do a great job making the grass for the turf cake she is also a master chocolate swirler and made the fun sea shell accents.

She also did an exceptional job of not eating too much icing along the way which is hard to do... Trust me, I struggle each time I make a fresh batch of icing... It just tastes so darn good....

The "turf" cake is a strawberry white cake with buttercream filling, decorated with buttercream icing and a fondant golf ball. The "Surf" cake is a marble cake filled with buttercream, decorated with buttercream and buttercream Accents along with white chocolate molded accents.

Core at the Shore

Pre-delivery...

Post delivery... Notice the blob on the top of the cake... The coral melted on the way to the shore... :(

The second annual CORE AT THE SHORE trip to Margate, NJ happened this weekend. My co-workers( and dare I say... friend :-) parent's graciously opened their house to us for some R& R. We were so appreciative of their incredible hospitality and look forward to next year when will spend two nights... we promise! Jen's mom made a fabulous Shabbat dinner which included a delicious acorn squash which Sara is blogging about on her new blog Vegcrazy. There are many highlights to the shore trip including spending some quality time with a fabulous group that is funny, creative and wildly entertaining.

I made a special shore cake to contribute to the festival of eating...

Top layer was chocolate (which I forgot to cut in half and put icing in the middle, I also forgot to add one of the three eggs required in the recipes... oops) and the bottom was vanilla with strawberry rhubarb jam in the middle. Covered with buttercream and then added accents made out of molded white chocolate (I mixed purple and white for some color effects). The leaves were fondant brushed with powdered food coloring. The coral suffered a small tragedy on the way down in the car... It melted. I used a technique where you crush ice in the food processor then pour the chocolate in the crushed ice. It hardens quickly and forms divots and other attributes of coral. I was really happy with it but unfortunately it melted in the sun in my air conditioned car on the ride down... I couldn't fit the coral in the cake transporter so I put them separately in a zip lock bag and placed it directly in the sun. Apparently this wasn't such a good idea... I took pictures of the cake before I left so at least I know I can do it... I just need to work on my transportation/delivery issues.

I added brown sugar for a sand effect to finish off the cake.

Next year's cake... What will it be? I'll take suggestions close to the date...

I know this is a cake blog but I wanted to share some pictures from the weekend. Here is the dinner crew...

Jen and her dad looking SO cute together...

Jen's really excited about the cake and Jacquie is holding her back...

Eating the world famous Mack and Manco's pizza... One of the many highlights...