Ok, tell me honestly – who is your favorite cake artist? (If you don’t have one, you can totally put my name in the comments - I will act so surprised and will actually be really flattered). Personally I’m a big fan of Ron Ben-Israel, Maggie Austin (an FPS graduate like me!), and Chef Marina Sousa. I was lucky enough to take a 4 day cake design workshop that Chef Marina taught at The French Pastry School a few years after I graduated. It was the perfect excuse to go back to one of my favorite cities (side note – have any of you ever been to Chicago in October?! That’s when her workshop took place, and holy perfect weather!!) and a school I so fervently adored. Also in case anyone is wondering what to get me for my birthday this summer, technique workshops with Ron Ben-Israel and Maggie Austin are absolutely on the list!!
The reason I ask is that I am constantly on the prowl for design inspiration for my next cake. I follow some amazing artists on social media and sometimes it’s overwhelming or hard to choose which methods I want to teach myself and which styles I want to practice more, so it’s always good for me to hear about what people want to see – and if you’re local, what you want to taste!
This cake is something that I’ve been dying to make for quite some time. I saw the design on social media, fell madly in love with it, and decided that I HAD to teach myself how to do it. I almost never use black in my designs, but I think it was the challenge that made it so appealing to me. Besides, I really needed to practice this pistachio cake recipe for a wedding cake I’m making this summer and I decided that this would be the perfect way to practice the recipe without replicating the wedding cake design. My friends really seemed to like it 😉
However I’m not entirely sure that I’ll ever use black buttercream again because it was so MESSY! Black buttercream under my nails, black buttercream on my coffee mug (??), black buttercream all over the white cake board as I was trying to take photos. Ugh, it was like trying to cleanup after a toddler, except I was the toddler and I couldn't understand how to stop making a mess!! Anyway, log in to leave me a comment about which cake designs you would like to see so I can have some direction for my next few projects!