How to: Rouching!

Rouching is a technique used to get a billowy fabric feel out of fondant cakes. I learned the basic technique from a TLC show featuring Swank Cakes. I used larger dowels, mixed with my finger-smoothing technique and came up with this method for rouching fondant.

Start with 6 dowels (the orange width, 3/8") and place them finger width apart.

Next, roll out a piece of fondant at least 8" tall, and long enough to cover all 6 dowels. Lightly dust your fingertips with cornstarch and gently press them in the gaps between the dowels. Run your fingers up and down the gaps, gently applying more and more pressure until the fondant molds to the dowels and forms even pleats.

After achieving the desired shape, take the ends of the dowels not covered by fondant and slowly pushed them closer together. Its important to ensure that all of the pleats remain somewhat even in this phase. Also, touching the dowels instead of the pleats will keep your work neat and wrinkle free.

The fondant will be placed on the cake in panels. In order to hide the seams, we create an "under" and "tail" system to interlock the panels. On the left, you will see the tube is trimmed to end "under" the pleat. On the right, the pleat ends in a small "tail."

Remove the dowels and pinch the top end of the fondant together. This is also a good time to trim the top to make an even edge.

Place the panels on the sculpted cake, left to right. Once on the cake, you will need a little extra finessing of the pleats to get them into a straight and even position. Always make sure the inside of the pleat is firmly secured to the cake. To trim the bottom, firmly secure the fondant to the under belly of the cake and cut excess fondant with manicure scissors.

To measure how far up the cake the rouching should go, I use a board the size of the next tier to estimate where to place the dowels.

Pay special attention to the bottom edge of the tier above your finished cake. There is no border with which to cover any imperfections, so we take the fondant all the way to the bottom and even tuck it partially underneath. This cake had a metallic final coat in a silvery gold.

Here is the finished cake that was delivered to The Winter Park Farmers Market.

To see the entire wedding, visit Orlando Wedding Pix

The design was inspired by the couples invitation.

Wedding Cake Design for a Designer: Winter Park Farmer's Market Elegance

Stylish Wedding at The Winter Park Farmer's Market

There is no more daunting of a task then creating something for a designer, especially when its as important as their wedding cake. Further, the pressure is really on when she is your best friend! Nicole and I had been talking about her wedding cake for years (literally), and when it came down to the final execution we took her style of clean, modern yet vintage, high contrast colors, yet simple and organic (the reception took place at The Winter Park Farmers Market)..... and took a turn towards the grand. Its her wedding cake after all!

This was the couples "brand" that appeared on everything from the invitations to the programs (to the banner hiding the not-so-elegant co

mmunity events board outside the Farmers Market).

Once the cake was assembled I began placing the brooch centered peony inspired flowers.

British folklore has it that the wedding can foretells the size of the couples family, The top represents the couple, the very bottom tier their family and the tiers in between is how many children the will have. My sights were set on a 7 tier cake (and wishes for 5 children), but I knew that would get me in trouble so I settled for 5! :)

Nicole wanted a touch of gold and a touch of black, much mostly a tone on tone look that wasn't too traditional. Our answer was to hide some jewelery looking brooches as the centers of the high petaled flower. I wanted the flowers to bring in some of the organic elements of the Farmers Market, without going the mason jar or potted plants route (also a cute idea for this venue).... so I added as many petals as possible.

The thought of black piping crossed my mind to add more contrast to this cake. In the end it was important to me that the flowers were the stars of the show and didn't want to go overboard on this anti-gaudy couple.

And the grooms cake for this dashing and musical groom! His real trumpet is silver, but an executive decision was made for the sake of the wedding colors to make it gold.These fantastic images were captured by Orlando Wedding Photographer Shannon Nicole Smith, a rising star in the wedding world! Ian and Nicole's wedding will be featured on their wedding stationery blog in the coming weeks, check back to get the link!

To see more of our wedding cakes, visit The Sugar Suite's wedding cake gallery! Now, her is some eye candy from their reception...