Ocean Themed Cake

I had the sweet opportunity to bake the cake and cupcakes for my husband's cousin's wedding this past weekend. It was a lot of work but it was very worth it! I just wanted to share a few photos of the baked goods and I hope it gives you some inspiration if you make cakes!


The bride and groom are both artists and extremely, wildly talented. I wish I had their drawing/art skills! They made all their own stationery for the wedding (drool). One of my secret dreams is to one day make my own paper stuff. Stationery. Etc! I am a total stationery junkie and have to restrain myself from buying too many cards. Yes, I am keeping Hallmark and the USPS in business. But that is another story!


The bride was also cool enough to let me do my own thing with the cake. This can be both a blessing and a curse. Fortunately, I had some direction and inspiration - their invites/RSVPs!

She also had told me that she was going to make their cake topper. At first I thought it was going to be like the two little birdies on their invite, but she ended up making a pair of turtles. It is amazing what you can do with some clay and creativity! They came out SO adorable!

I colored the fondant a sandy color and put that over the whole cake. Then, to make the "ocean waves" on the cake, I used white fondant for the first layer of ocean foam at the top of the cake. This gave it some nice contrast. Then I made three different shades of blue/green fondant and cut out more circles, layering them on the cake in a scallop pattern. I finished it off with a nice brown ribbon border at the bottom. This was a fairly easy design to execute; it just took some time and patience to do!

These guys are so cute!

I don't really like my fondant recipe and will need to do some tweaking. It doesn't respond well to the humidity here, even when I avoided refrigeration. Gah! Any suggestions? I'd rather make my own than buy commercially made fondant.

In addition to the small cake for cutting (which was Red Velvet inside!) I also made 300+ cupcakes, half Red Velvet and half Chocolate with Coconut Frosting. It would have been a LOT faster to make all the components in a mixer larger than my Kitchen Aid. (Honey - 20qt Hobart Mixer for Christmas - please?) But I made it work. I also have a super tiny oven at home, but my father-in-law graciously let me borrow his oven to bake all the cupcakes so it took me half the time! I brought all the cupcakes to the venue and frosted them right before the wedding. I could not have done everything as fast as I did without the help of my awesome sister-in-law! I think she also helped me keep my sanity a little bit :)

I really liked the heart toothpics that the bride had made. They added a nice amount of color to the cupcakes and made them look really special!

The whole wedding was super fun and I could really feel the love the couple had for each other! Congratulations you two!


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