Wedding Cake Design Consultation

When Pepper's Creative Consultant, Melissa Brunis, first met with Jennifer Elliot and Don Beaton, their two great danes came up in conversation. They explained how Mina, the female, was angel-like and well behaved, but Chancer, the male, was a real trouble maker… always getting into something he shouldn’t. Melissa presented a picture of a cake that Peppers had previously done for a groom's cake of three beagles eating a cake, and they loved it!

Jennifer and Don decided they wanted to do something similar for their wedding cake. Jennifer envisioned a traditional two tiered white cake with Mina sitting primly on top. Chancer, on the other hand would have gotten into trouble…running circles around the cake and chomping into it leaving crumbs in his wake and smearing frosting on his face!

Wedding Cake Design and Construction

To begin the design process of making the dogs, Pepper's head baker, Linda LaBarge, met with Jennifer and Don to capture their unique and personal vision.

Then Linda began construction with the dogs' internal structure - Floral wire and popsicle sticks begin to provide support, movement and personality.

Next, rice crispy treat material was modeled around the internal structure with attention to every detail like facial structure, muscle tone and any other characteristics that we want to stand out. The dogs were then painted with Royal Icing, allowed to dry and then sanded smooth, making sure all components fit.
    Next Linda covered the dogs with fondant, brushed the figures with water and added additional pieces, such as ears, eyes and tail.
         The figures with were finished with a painting of food dye, paying close attention to shading and the little details, whiskers, eyes and noses.

The final photo shows the finished cake after Chancer "got to it". Not shown in the photo is Mina, the other (well-behaved) dog, who couldn't be placed on top of the cake until after transportation to the reception hall.

"One of the star attractions was our wedding cake which was the subject of a lot of laughter and many photos with our niece Ava busily explaining that Chancer one of our two dogs (Chancer and Mina) had already helped himself.

 We would like to add our thanks and appreciation to the staff at Peppers who helped make this an exceptional day."

-Jennifer and Don Beaton

Thanks Linda for making this day fun, personal, delicious and definitely memorable!