Superfine Bakery

Superfine and The Cream (of the Crop!)

superfinebakery — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:48:17 +0000

Hi All!

We’re thrilled to announce that Superfine has been chosen as the exclusive wedding cake house to grace the floor of The Cream curated wedding show on March 1 at the Book Bindery in Culver City, CA! There will be GOOD gift bags, wine, Superfine cake, sudden bursts of confetti, delicious ice cream, jaw-dropping table designs, nouveau florals, perfect music, hott fashion, and unique furniture and decor all for rent at your event!!

The Cream is a curated wedding show featuring the latest stylings of the L.A.-based duo at Bash, Please, Kelly Harris and Paige Appel. The shows are recognized in national print and on-air media as the go-to for the engaged art & fashion set throughout the US, and having recently completed a successful fourth show in Austin, Texas, they’re bringing their magic back to Los Angeles.

The Culver City Book Bindery will be the largest of their shows yet. All previous shows have averaged a capacity of 300-350, but this one invites 800 lucky ticket holders to hang with the largest crop ever of hand-picked wedding vendors gathered for this event. All previous shows have sold out, so buy your tickets now!

Come by and say Hi to the chef (that’s me, Andrea, over there in the gold sequin shorts), taste some DECADENT cake, nosh on some of our wildly popular Fleur de Sel caramels, and pick up a secret code ONLY FOR THE CREAM ATTENDEES for 25% off our caramels when purchased from our Etsy shop!!

Hope to see you there!

One last thing: We have chosen the winner of our ticket giveaway. The lucky gal is Maria Valentin! Congratulations, Maria!

Victor and Richard at the City Club

superfinebakery — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 01:49:36 +0000

A little Art Deco with a twist of modern sugar succulents on top was just the ticket for Victor and Richard’s wedding on the 54th floor of the Wells Fargo building in downtown LA, also known as the City Club. A shimmery lilac decorated the whole event from the linens to the lighting, so I opted to create a lilac Art Deco pattern on their cake and brushed it with a little shimmer.

The Art Deco movement in LA is similar to the style that evolved in another coastal city, Miami. It’s softer shapes that echo clouds and waves, as opposed to the “Zig-Zag Deco” style popular in New York as expresssed with chevrons and sharp sculpted embellishments. Since this cake is in LA, I wanted to make it more architecturally relevant, so here we have the soft cloud motif.

The sugar succulents (yes, they’re all sugar), were made using life models bought at my local garden center. I bought a variety and copied them, all the way down to dusting the color on: Pale blue at the center, and light touches of green on the bottom leaves’ edges. Succulents are great to work on because they’re so varied and strange, some looking like plants from another planet. It’s impossible to make them look bad! I can’t wait to do more…

The stunning florals (like the arrangement above!) were provided by Meg McCarter of The Little Branch, event photography (and the portrait below!) by Leah Lee Photography, and event design was beautifully executed by Seth Matheson of Seth Matheson Designs. Congratulations, Victor and Richard!!

Superfine Bakery supports art programs in K-12 schools, groups involved in animal rescue, and marriage for all. In the spirit of love and marriage for all, we ran a contest on Facebook and Twitter offering a free wedding cake for the first same-gender California couple to get married under the new New York laws, and return to LA for their ceremony. Victor and Richard were our winners!

Staci and Rob, Ojai Valley Inn and Spa

superfinebakery — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 21:04:34 +0000

Staci and Rob chose an outdoor setting under a pergola at the gorgeous Ojai Valley Inn and Spa for their wedding dinner for 30, and wanted a rustic sweet cake to go along with it. She’s based in NYC, so we worked completely via email and phone. Staci sent fantastic inspiration pictures for me to draw from, so I created this pink sugar peony, a watermelon-red poppy, and an orange poppy (based on our California state flower!) to create the energy on this cake.

I love big bold flowers, but also believe they need some contrast in color and small detail, so I added a few groups of small green buds and bright yellow to offset the deeper sunset colors of the large-flower grouping. The buttercream exterior was really fun to detail, but after being so oriented to making things perfectly straight and flat, I have to admit it was *hard* for me to snap out of that mode and free up my wrists and brain to make something more randomly textured like this! I love the way it came out though, and can’t wait to do another cake like this for a very special birthday girl in April (hi Karina!).

I loved working with Ariel Yve of Ariel Yve Designs, and can’t wait to work with her again.

Big hugs to you all and happy 2012!

Campanile Cakes

admin — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 20:06:00 +0000

Campanile, one of L.A.’s top restaurants, is housed in a historic building constructed in 1929 for the one and only Charlie Chaplin. Owned and operated by a Who’s Who of chefs, it also happened to be the site of today’s Superfine wedding.

Simple and clean was the order of the day. Our bride, Hillary, ordered a white stacked cake with flowing sugar ribbons, and asked for sugar sweet peas and sugar hydrangea to match the other flowers in the room. Hillary also wanted a straight-up chocolate cake for the kids (although a few adults came over during set up to request a piece!).

The cakes we design for children tend to be on the cleaner, more sophisticated side (sorry, no Elmo cakes here . This one’s no exception: We made a smooth chocolate ganache surface to cover the Black Onyx chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream inside, and popped a small cluster of sugar hydrangea on the top to coordinate it with the main cake.

The main white cake was a stack of Red Velvet, Carrot Cake, and Vanilla with Three-Berry icing (the bride’s favorite). When I do sugar straps or ribbons like these on a cake, I don’t like to leave the back plain: Two straight ends that simply meet at a seam. So I usually take the opportunity to add secret detail that somehow enhances and reflects the mood of the cake and the event.

This white cake had loose flowing ribbons around it, so I ended them with a slant cut and rippled them like loose ribbon ends. I added small sugar buttons as a closure and varied the heights of the ribbons to add some visual interest.

Congrats to Hillary and Manuello, and all the best!

Cakes Fit for a Queen (Mary)

admin — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 22:58:00 +0000

Imagine a large passenger ship something on the scale of the Titanic, but more Art Deco than victorian inside. “Waterfall” style built-in woodwork (rounded corners and edges), high ceilings, and copper and brass details to finish off the look.

click for larger view

This is the interior of the Royal Salon aboard the Queen Mary, docked in Long Beach Harbor since 1967. It’s also the setting for this week’s wedding cake table designed for Margie and Morgen, two architects from New York.

The Royal Salon has a lovely built-in buffet with a copper back and half-moon shape across the front. It served as the perfect space for the six cake set up Margie requested: All in vintage style, made with buttercream but for one. The center cutting cake (pictured at left) would be decorated with fondant tiers and delicate ruffles.

Margie had little ribbon flags made with various ribbons in her colors, seafoam and coral, and sent them to me to insert in the tops of the cakes. For her central cake, she had a very special paper flag made: It’s been calligraphed with “Margie & Morgen.” (click the picture for a closer view).

The flavor for this one was a fresh almond cake layered with Pistachio icing. An upscale and beautiful choice for Margie and Morgen to feed eachother for pictures.

Alongside the main ruffle cake is a version of the currently popular Frill cake, seen just to the left and back a little. I first saw this design in Martha Stewart, and it’s beautiful done in vintage pastels like yellow or pink, or white as in this photo (the dark room makes it look a tad yellow, but all cakes were white

This one was a carrot cake, a flavor popular with guests young and old.

Under a glass cloche, a round buttercream cake decorated with simple coral sugar buttons is elevated from just a cake to a precious object. Fun to make and sweet to look at, this cake was a sweet lemon cake (flavored only with fresh lemon juice and lemon zest), iced with vanilla bean icing.

Below you’ll see that on the far right end of the buffet we placed a cake covered top to bottom with sweet buttercream rosettes, and situated it next to the cake that, around the bakery, came to be known as the “Tiki Hut.” Vertical fluting on the sides and top angle of the Tiki Hut cake created a great structural statement among the softer cakes surrounding it, and placing it under a second cloche added balance to the larger one over the button cake. The rose cake was our Pink Velvet iced with Three-berry icing, and the Tiki Hut was a small carrot cake, the bride and groom’s favorite flavor.

Last, but not least, is our sixth cake below, a sweet stack of lemon cake and vanilla bean icing featuring simple Swiss dots on the bottom tier. As any cake-maker will tell you, Swiss dots appear simple and easy, but in fact take a lot of measuring and a steady hand. The eye seeks order, and if one dot is even 1/4 inch off its mark, the pattern appears off and the effect is ruined. And this table is not about odd patterns: It’s about order and grace. The beauty of math.

Adorable calligraphy and intricate letterpress of the main flag by Betsy Dunlap and Blackbird Letterpress, respectively. The flowers were done by Rebecca of Holly Flora who had beautiful dahlias, roses and more to dress the bases of the cake stands as well as the whole room. Thanks Rebecca, for the gorgeous finishing touches to the cake table, and to Margie and Morgen: Congratulations!!

La Dolce Vita

admin — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:01:00 +0000

Greg and I took a little vacation from our lives early this month, and got to know Rome, Florence and eachother again. Hot days were spent walking cobblestone streets, seeking out the best food and most interesting people we could find. Above is a shot of cocco (coconut) and limone (lemon) gelato, taken outside the reputed best gelato place in Rome, Giolitti.

Streets in Italy criss cross, meet at odd angles, and there’s something beautiful and interesting around every corner. Avoid anyplace selling pizza. It’s good, but it’s the mark of an overpriced tourist restaurant that likely also serves packaged pasta. That’s not what we were looking for.

I’m a fan of gnocchi, so I ordered it in two different places there on the first two nights. Both were packaged. I was expecting something fresh, made that morning. I’ve been spoiled by the restaurants here in LA like Mario Batali’s Osteria Mozza and Fabio Viviani’s Osteria Firenze, both of whom specialize in fresh, homemade amazingness straight from the heart of Italy. Greg and I are fast learners though, so we spent Night #3 hunting the real deal.

At home one of our favorite ways to eat is tapas style. Grazing. Meats, cheeses, cornichons, olives, apples, dried apricots, cashews, marcona almonds — whatever is in the cabinet and fridge. So one night in Florence we were delighted to spy a small brick cellar-like shop down thre stairs, below a large building. The door was open, the lights were on, and I could see the edge of a well-lit glass case that looked like it had some goodies in it. Two older Italian men in suits were having an animated conversation over aperatifs with the owner behind the counter, and I was a little shy to intrude on what was clearly a local, private evening ritual. But I wanted some of that cheese. And some slices off the salami up high on a shelf behind the counter. So I walked in, and began a conversation in my broken Italian, to ask for some goodies.

The owner spoke little English, but as soon as I said the word “picnic,” he knew exactly what I was doing. He never asked for amounts, just cut off enough cheese, salami, and buttery prosciutto for two, held up two breads for me to choose from, and let me point at the dishes of roasted peppers, olives, pickled anchovy (Greg loves the stuff — me, not so much), and packed it up for us. While I spoke to the owner Greg browsed the floor-to-ceiling wine racks behind us and picked out a nice bottle of something for us to share. We paid, took the goodies back to our room, and had our first great, authentic meal of the trip.

After our dinner we wandered out for sweets. There’s no lack of goodies in Italy, and the people are so kind and helpful, you can make your vacation what ever you like.

No trip to Italy is complete without a visit to the Holy Land: Parma. Home of the best prosciutto in the world, we paid homage with a trip to the Prosciutto Museum there where we could learn about the happy piggies, the tradition of prosciutto making, and see some of the old tools and racks used since 1920. We were the only ones in there. I’d like to think it’s because we’re big LA celebs and they cleared the place out for us, but ah, I think it’s just ’cause no one else was interested. Ahem. Moving on…

We had the best meal of the trip on top of our last hotel, the Raphael in Rome. The rooftop restaurant serves four-star cuisine in an idyllic setting overlooking the rooftops and churches throughout Rome. With a light warm breeze and a big waxing moon hanging in the darkening sky, it was a great place to finish the trip.

If you’re planning a trip there anytime soon, here are a few resources to get you started. If you’re heading back next August, we’ll see you there :

Recommendations in Rome (Roma):

Gelato: Giolitti
Via degli Uffici del Vicario, 40
Open daily 7:00 – 2:00 a.m.
Advice: Pay at the cashier booth in the front FIRST, then get in line to order your gelato.

Hotel: Raphael
Largo Febo 2, Piazza Navona
Make reservations to eat on the rooftop. Ask for Clive who has been managing the restaurant for 12 years.

Restaurant: See Hotel Raphael’s Restaurant.

Recommendations in Florence (Firenze):

Hotel: Palazzo Vecchietti
Via degli Strozzi 4
Only 12 rooms, this place provides the ultimate in service, peace, and lovely communal morning breakfasts.

Restaurants: Osteria Belle Donne
Via delle Belle Donne 16
Casual atmosphere with outstanding food, have Jacinto (Ja-shinto) recommend your wines.

For Grazers, hit up our little cellar find:
No idea what the name is, but it’s on Via Parione, across the street and up the same block a little from the restaurant Trattoria I’ Parione.

Happy Anniversary, Babe

admin — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 21:02:00 +0000

Four years ago I married the coolest, hottest, kindest, smartest, and tallest guy I could find. Greg, my 6’6″ church camp counselor, pre-law student, Japanese speaker, scuba instructor, Ivy League digital product guru, I love you. Thank you for this amazing life we have together. You’re the Captain of my heart.

Carondelet House is Superfine

admin — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:19:00 +0000

“Andrea, do you realize how long it’s been since you’ve done a post? I’ve been looking at these last two on flowers for about a month now. Show me the cake!”

Yes, I know. I’ve been neglectful! But I do have something pretty to show you (albeit, not a cake this time around):

Carondelet House entrance and its amazing painted, vaulted ceilings.

It’s Carondelet House. For those of you from Los Angeles, you have likely heard of the in-demand venue spaces called the Smog Shoppe and Marvimon. These locations specialize in featuring recyclable materials and eco-friendly plantings to enhance the open plans at both locations for maximum beauty, modernity, and hip factor. The latest addition to this family of locations is The Carondelet, so named for the street address, 627 Carondelet St.

Main room, set for dining.

When I first saw the property, it was for delivery of a large wedding cake for a photoshoot styled by Amber Gustafson of Amber Events. A few weeks prior I’d met the catering manager of Tres LA Catering who happens to manage the company out of the second floor of The Carondelet and was happy to reconnect with her at the shoot.

Cozy alcove complete with fireplace and club chairs.

We set up time to do a tasting and spent an afternoon tasting cake and talking about the importance of fresh ingredients, responsive client service, and a ~~hot pair of high heels~~ er, beautiful visual design. Ahem. Yes. Anyway, that meeting went well and I am very pleased to announce that Superfine is now a Preferred Vendor at the Carondelet House. It’s a very exciting honor for us, and we look forward to a long and happy relationship with Melissa, Steven, and the rest of the impeccable crew at Tres LA and The Carondelet.

Sugar Flower Research: Descanso, Day 2

admin — Thu, 05 May 2011 17:27:00 +0000

Continuing our last post on sugar flower research, here are some lovely shots of the flowers in bloom up at Descanso Gardens. Enjoy!

Stunning roses are in bloom at Descanso Gardens making it the perfect place to snap pictures of exotic models for sugar flower-making. Check out what we captured on our trip there last week!

Descanso is divided into several gardens, all with one genus of flower in it: Lilacs, roses, irises and so on. Here is a shot of a bearded iris, and a rarely-seen-in-these-parts blooming dogwood:

Sugar Flower Research: Descanso Garden Lilacs

admin — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 19:34:00 +0000

An unusual variety of bright purple lilac with white-edged blooms.

I didn’t grow up with lilacs. My childhood sense-memory of these beauties was trained by cheap lilac soaps from the local grocery store and perfumes from Avon. So on my visit to Descanso Gardens in Montrose yesterday, I was overwhelmed by the beauty and variations on the looks and scents of these April/May stunners.

Click for a larger image of this blue-purple beauty.

Looking up through a deep purple lilac tree.

I think these deep purple lilacs mixed with the pale lavender ones at the end of this post are my favorite look. Contrast of two or more colors, even if they’re close to each other, seems to energize the whole look of an arrangement or cake for me. That also applies to flavors — I wouldn’t do a chocolate cake with chocolate icing: Your palate will numb to the flavor too fast. Instead, contrast it with mint, coffee, orange, raspberry, or something light like vanilla.

There were so many varieties of lilacs that I wanted to capture some of the most striking and unusual. This lilac is bright pink, and features uncharacteristically tiny flowers (usually each bloom is about the size of a nickel — these are the size of a pencil eraser).

A cascade of pale lavender lilacs.

Today the focus was lilacs. In my next post we’ll have the rest of the flowers: Poppies (the opium variety with extraordinary blossoms), tulips, bearded irises in impossible colors, and more. There is just too much beauty to post it all here. I need to give you a breather.

Have a great weekend!