Amazing Wedding Cakes

It's not often I envy people with thousands of television channels because most of the time there's nothing worth watching on any of them. However, recently a show called Amazing Wedding Cakes was brought to my attention, and after watching the video clips posted on the website, I started wishing I had access to the WE tv channel so I could watch the full-length episodes.

Each episode of Amazing Wedding Cakes follows the life of three different cakes, each one made by a different designer bakery, from the initial order to the final delivery. As a cake decorating enthusiast, this is the kind of stuff I love to watch. I know a lot of techniques and have enough skills to replicate just about anything, but creativity is one thing I struggle with, so for me watching how these talented cake decorators come up with such elaborate designs is fascinating. I must admit, I also like watching the mishaps. It's comforting to know that even the experts get it wrong from time to time.

If you're lucky enough to have a cable/satellite TV package that includes the WE tv channel, then you can check out the Amazing Wedding Cakes show. The 4th season starts on Sunday, March 27th at 8:00 p.m. central time. These are all new episodes, featuring the White Flower Cake Shoppe, The Cake Artist (this bakery is owned and run by a very talented 21 year-old!), Gateaux, and Christopher Garren's Cakes.

If, like me, you don't have access to the We tv channel, you can still watch video clips from the show on their website. While there, surf around and learn more about the bakeries featured, and be sure to check out the recipes page. There are also more video clips from the show that fans have uploaded on YouTube, just do a search for Amazing Wedding Cakes. In the meantime, I'm going to see what I can do about getting this show on DVD.

Should've Done Sunday

Today I saw an old friend for the first time in over a year. By old friend, I'm not referring to her age; I mean that I've known her a long time. I decorated her wedding cake, and at the time it was the biggest project I had ever undertaken. Not because it was that complicated or difficult, but because I was still pretty much a beginner decorator. I was so proud of that cake, and it was pretty, but I look at pictures of it now and I can't help but see flaws and where I went wrong. I guess that's the eye of experience or something, but there's a long list of "Should've Dones" for that one.

I have quite a few pictures of cakes I've decorated over the past 14 years, and while I must have thought they looked good enough on the day to take their picture, some make me cringe when I look at them now. So I thought I'd share some of them here on my blog. The nice thing about past mistakes is that you can learn from them and do better the next time.

Starting next Sunday, because it's way too late for me to go digging up an old picture and hook up the scanner and all that now, I'll post a photo of a randomly selected cake from my past and tell you what I don't like about it now and what I think I should've done instead. I'm not promising a Should've Done Sunday post every week, but I'd like to make it a regular theme.