Jessica and Jason - April 25, 2009

Jessica and Jason were married and had their beautiful "lounge" themed reception at Viscaya Pavillion in beautiful downtown Sacramento. Her colors were greens, pinks and purples with lots of crystal! With these details in mind we created this cake in three shades of green with sugar diamonds between the layers and all topped off with Waterford Crystal flowers.

(Quick note here: When Jessica asked every other bakery in town about using the crystal flowers to top her cake, they all said no. I try not to have that word in my vocabulary. It was just an obstacle to be overcome. Each flower had an 18" long stem (that you don't see because it is INSIDE the cake).

I created a plastic tube and plate structure that went through the entire cake and that the flowers slipped into... very slick, but more than a bit difficult to assemble!) The cake, again!, was a real collaboration. The bottom tier was chocolate cake with layers of cherry jam, vanilla bean pastry cream and Morello cherry compote. The middle tier was vanilla bean butter cake with layers of raspberry pear mousse with fresh raspberries. Jessica's Mom made the raspberry pear jam that I then turned into mousse. The top layer, to be saved for the following day, was red velvet with layers of cream cheese buttercream. What a cake!

With the "lounge" theme Jessica and Jason decided to have heavy appetizers and a dessert buffet (in addition to the cake!) instead of a sit down dinner. Below are some of the pictures.

Fruit Tartlets with Vanilla Bean Pastry Cream

The guests were treated to, among other things, pink peppermint and pistachio marshmallows cut into the couple's first and last initials. I went a step further and cut out their whole first names... how fun! (This is the joy of a boutique dessert shop! We can do fun crazy things like this!)
Jessica's Mom's favorite! Lemon Meringue Triffle: Layers of lemon curd, creme fraiche and dried meringue.

Special thanks to Allison Stahl Photography for all these lovely pictures! She did a great job and I'm thrilled to be able to share these pictures with you all!