A little background here.  I introduced my former student Summer Drake in this blog post at the end of December. One day I was brainstorming about photography sessions I could do in between jobs and I thought of Summer and her cake baking enterprise.  As a new business myself, I am quite aware of the need for the new business to get the word out about their product, be it photography or cakes.  I myself do this with my website, Facebook business page and, of course, this blog.  So I thought that I use the tools I have at my disposal to give a hand to Summer and help her promote her Drake’s Cakes business.  So I came up with the idea of shooting a photographic journey of Summer putting together one of her cake masterpieces.

I was a big fan of the show “Amazing Wedding Cakes”.  I always thought that the job, the creation of the final product, looked like something fun and creative, but I knew it would be too tedious a job  for me to do.  Plus, I know that somewhere along the line I would succumb to the temptation of doing a faceplant into one of the cakes and eating my way to the surface.  One might think that the show would be boring to watch, but I found it highly dramatic and entertaining.  The show featured 4 different bakeries that followed the creation of the final cake from the meeting with the client to the final delivery and the clients all gushy and happy about the results.  But the show always had its share of tense moments.  There were  the two sisters who always hated each other during the making of the cake but at the end loved each other again, until the next cake.  Then there was the owner that would never like anything and pretty much throw out everything that was done and start over an hour before delivery (as my wife said, “I could not work for that man.”).  Of course there was always the  perils of delivering a huge wedding cake on time in the harrowing Los Angeles traffic. But my favorite drama moment was when the baker found a slight flaw on one of the 2 dozen blown sugar glass balls and proceeded to throw everyone of them on the floor at about 4 in the morning with shots of her 2 interns looking on in horror.  Classic.

I did not anticipate there being any of this type of drama at Summer’s cake baking session.  After all, the other is television and if it didn’t have drama and suspense, no one would watch  “Amazing Wedding Cakes”. It would have just been another cooking show.  What I did want to do was capture the love and care and steps that Summer took during the cake building experience.  I believe the photographs that follow are a great testament to Summer’s cake making abilities.

I did a Friday night and Saturday afternoon session with Summer.  She had three cakes to decorate.  She had done all the baking before I arrived and the cakes were chilling in the fridge.  Summer’s sister Samantha, another former student of mine, came over and helped.  (they liked each other all the way through the process)  I hope these pictures convey the energy that Summer puts into her creations to make sure that the client is completely 100% satisfied with the results.  (or gushy and happy, if you prefer)

The cakes I photographed are the baby shower cake and the Sweet 16 cake.  It was also Summer’s first topsy-turvy cake.  Finally at the bottom are two pictures Summer provided of two wedding cakes she made.

For more photographs go see her Facebook page at facebook.com/drakescakesandcatering.

Phone number: (623)297-0113

Email: summerldrake@gmail.com

On to the main event!

BABY SHOWER CAKE

SWEET SIXTEEN TOPSY TURVY CAKE

The above is the cake without the decorations.

SAMPLES OF SUMMER’S WEDDING CAKES.

AND JUST ONE MORE THING…

When I started writing this post I started thinking of Bill Cosby’s routine about chocolate cake, so thought I would share it.  It is hysterical, without a single swear word.  Worth the 9 minutes.