Easy like Sunday morning...

For Sundays with the Chef this morning, we're going to share a little about Chef/Owner Kristen Repa's day last Sunday. We were hired to create a Lionel Richie cake for a wedding where the bride and groom were huge Lionel Richie fans. They requested that the cake look like the clay bust of Lionel's head from his music video, "Hello." (Skip to 4:40 to see the bust in the video if you don't want to watch the whole thing.)

With any three dimensional cake, there are structural issues to be concerned with. Kristen took the appropriate precautions and made the head out of a denser cake and put the appropriate dowels inside for stability.

Here, you can see the cake in progress. Kristen has stacked the cakes, carved them in the rough shape of his face and started to cover it in buttercream frosting.

Kristen then covered him in chocolate buttercream, to make him look like he was made out of clay, and to start to form some of the details.

Finally, she added the hair and he was complete!


The cake was ready to be delivered, so it was loaded into the delivery van and off Kristen went to personally deliver the cake. While she was driving, a biker cut out in front of her and she had to slam on the brakes! She heard a thud and pulled over, fearing the worst. Lionel had been decapitated!

Luckily, she had brought some extra chocolate buttercream and some supplies with her. She stopped at a hardware store for some extra wooden dowels, and when she got to the venue, she was able to put him back together in time.

We are closed on Mondays, but just 2 days after the wedding, on Tuesday, we had someone come into the retail store and say, "I was at the Lionel Richie cake wedding, and that cake was absolutely amazing!"

So last Sunday was not "easy like Sunday morning," but despite the stress and the unexpected, we still delivered an amazing creation that impressed the bride & groom, and guests alike!