The Preakness Winners Barn Party Cake

Hi Ya'll!

I am doing a quick post on the Preakness cake I did about 2 weeks ago for the winners of the Preakness held at Pimlico Race Track in Baltimore, Maryland. This cake was the biggest cake to date that I have ever done! It ended up serving about 300 people!!! And boy was this cake heavy!!! I can't tell you how much it weighed once it was completed but the hubby and I had a heck of time loading it into the van. It almost didn't fit out the front door of our house! We had to tilt it slightly sideways to get it to fit. At least I know what are the max dimensions I can fit through the door:)

I know some of you are thinking how did little ole me land such a big job..well it definitely goes back to making sure you please your clients. A client of mine, P, who I did her wedding cake last year, works for the Maryland Jockey Club (the organization that runs the Preakness). So she approached me back in the beginning of April and asked me if I would be interested in doing the Winners cake. She went on to say how she loved her wedding cake so much and how everyone raved about it that when she needed someone to do the Winners cake she thought of me first:) Of course I was very pleased that she thought of me instead of one of the local bakeries in Baltimore. So we talked over next couple of weeks about design and flavor. I had to send her some sketches and once she approved we were off to the races (lol)! She wanted a plain design with vanilla cake and vanilla buttercream in order to make sure everyone ate it. The final design changed slightly from the original but in the end she loved it and said all of her co-workers liked it and they will be using me from now on for the Winners cake! Such an exciting thing for my  business, we now have our first official corporate client:)

As you can see I did a lot of air brushing for this cake. I also made chocolate horse shoes that decorated the cake as well as fondant Black Eyed Susans.I had to include all 11 horses that were racing so those are the names scattered around the middle cake. The design is a lot plainer than what I normally do but she wanted to keep it simple for the first year and I am glad she did! The middle cake is a double stacked 12x18 airbrushed in brown. The 2 side cakes are 14, 10 and 8 inch rounds airbrushed in yellow. The signs on the top were made from fondant and had the Preakness 2012 logo on them. Each tier is wrapped in black ribbon.

My next post will be my carrot cake recipe and more information on my allergy free line:)

Peace & Blessings
Kima