Monogrammed cakes and fondant plaques

(Let Them Eat Cake)

Clever title, huh? Cut me a little slack- with less than a month until the Champ wedding I'm a little dry in the creativity department. Less than a month....eek. Anyhoo-

Ever since I saw a picture of a cake with a monogram on it, I knew I had to somehow incorporate a monogram into our design. I asked around, and it seemed like all of the bakers we had to choose from did their monograms freehand, so I searched for some inspirational photos to show our baker.

A bit more modern than our original style, but such a stunning cake!

(Peggy Porschen Cakes)

This was more along the line of what I was thinking, with some flowers on top to jazz it up a little. I really like the layered patterns on this cake.

(Sweet Retreat Cakes)

I loved this cake, but our baker won't do square cakes. I still don't get the reasoning, but I'll go along with any shaped cake at this point.

(Pink Cake Box)

So simple. I love it.

(Pink Cake Box)

Check out the monogram on this bad boy. It's actually made out of gum paste and edible pearls! I'm sure the price tag is as unbelievable as the cake is!

(The Cake Artist)

This wouldn't be an inspirational photo post without something from Martha.

(Martha Stewart)

Another uh.ma.zing. baker is Christopher Garren's Let them Eat Cake team. If you have a second, check out his website and see his creations. They blow me away.

(Let Them Eat Cake)

And after all that- my ultimate favorite?? This cake by Rianne of Art of Desert. She made this cake for her cousin's wedding, and because it was such a hot day she used rice crispy treats instead of cake!

If you're at all a baker or even a wannabe, check out her blog Art of Dessert. There are some seriously cool tutorials and gorgeous ideas.(Art of Dessert)

Our cake will be similar with a gold ribbon and deep red tea roses on top. So now that I had a picture to send to our baker, I had to figure out how Rianne shaped the plaque behind the monogram. Picking a monogram is the easy part. Finding a plaque to attach the monogram has been my toughest struggle, because I found all the options online to be a bit cheesy or boring.

Here's an oval plaque in gum paste premade to 5 1/2" for $5.49

(Shop Bakers Nook)

I emailed Rianne from Art of Dessert to ask how she got her plaque to be that pretty shape, and I actually asked her if she would make me one! It's too bad she doesn't live in Colorado, because she told me the plaque wouldn't be fit for mounting to the cake by the time it would get to me. So sad. BUT she did give me the website for the cutter she used for her plaque.

Hopefully our baker will be able to use this cutter! It's only $5.95 so I figure it's worth a shot.

(Bake Deco)

Here's a close-up of Rianne's plaque. She explains her process for plaque making in one of her blog entries if you're interested.

If all else fails, I'm going to order a 2 1/8 x 3.5 inch MONOGRAM plaques (offered in both gum paste or fondant) from Cake Art with our monogram. It's only $1.50, and although I don't like the shape as much, it could work.I'm just a little concerned that the plaque will not be pliable enough to put on the cake. I dunno... we'll see!

What do you think? Am I being too pushy by buying this cutter for our baker to use for our cake?