I was blown away when I received the call for the opportunity to conceptualize Asahd’s birthday cake. Like most, I am a huge fan of DJ Khaled’s work. I respect his artistry and admire the high standards he sets for fatherhood in the hip hop community.

            Renowned event planner, Kathy Romero of Kathy Romero Events, provided simple details about  the venue, concept, servings and color scheme. The event color scheme was set to be navy blue, white, red, and gold. And for 500 people! Yes, 500 people at Marlin’s Stadium in Miami!

            I had to come up with a cake that fell in line with Romero’s Circus Village concept. I decided to create two jumbo circus themed cakes. The six tiered main cake stood three and a half feet tall and was lined with lights. The top three tiers illustrated a suede red and white royal carousel. Within the carousel, I added 12 horses and a beautiful 14 karat gold trim. I rotated the colors of the horses to bring Nicole’s vision to life as I knew how important it was to include all of the colors. These colors were sure to exemplify the carnival appearance.  I topped the cake with a 14 karat gold lion given Ashad means lion.

The lower tiers were inspired by the carnivals I attended as a child. I wanted to be sure to include a curtain. The small black tier included Ashad’s name and below it I used fondant to create the dramatic curtain effect that brought me back to my childhood.

            Now it was time to move onto the second cake! I wanted to create a cake that symbolized the second most important aspect of a carnival – the great food & snacks! The four tiered cake featured a striped carnival tent, an over sized sugar wafer cone with ice cream & a cherry! The top two tiers included an old fashion bucket of buttered popcorn topped with a sugar sculpted pretzel.

Once I completed the cakes, I needed to add elements to the table to bring the carnival feel to the next level. These small elements that surrounding the cakes are what brought this village to life. Featuring over 300 cupcakes with elegant clown mask toppers adorned with red feathers, red sparkled candle apple cake pops with black and white stripes dressed with a gold label that read, “Happy Birthday Asahd,” and stripped sugar cookie tents surrounded the 8 foot table on acrylic stands that helped give a 3D effect and was sure to bring this village to life.

This cake took over 3 weeks of prep work, over 100 hours of labor but the end result was a masterpiece, a happy client and a memory for years to come! Happy Birthday Asahd Khaled