Made With Love For Love

My sister got married this past Sunday and I was asked to bake the wedding cake. Gulp! OMG, my first wedding cake!

I took Friday off from work so I could do the baking and making of cake filling and fondant. Saturday was cake assembly day.

The cake was supposed to be a four layer, two-tiered concoction. Notice the key word "supposed". Things started off good. The plan was to have the first cake layer topped with  lightly lemon flavored buttercream icing, then another layer of cake with the homemade raspberry filling, another layer of cake with lemon buttercream followed by the last layer of cake. So much for plans.

The first two cake layers stacked nicely. I piped an icing dam around the cake to hold the raspberry filling in and then spread the filling. Looking good. Added another layer of cake and started to put the next layer of lemon buttercream on. Whoa! This layer started slip sliding away and before I knew it, I had raspberry oozing out and down the sides! I needed to remove the last cake layer and figure out what was going wrong. Only in trying to remove the 12" diameter layer, it broke into pieces. Now I've got buttercream and raspberry everywhere! On the cake where it is not supposed to be, on the counter, down the front of my kitchen cabinet, on the floor....talk about a mess!

I tossed the broken layer into the garbage and made the decision to go with 3 cake layers on each tier. I scraped off the remaining filling and re-piped the icing dam only farther back from the edge of the cake this time. A new layer of filling was added before topping it with the final cake layer. This time everything stayed in place as I put the crumb coat of icing on the top and sides of the tier. Hooray!

I built the top tier and then it was fondant time. I don't work in fondant much primarily because I don't care for the taste of it. However, I found a recipe on Cake Central for a Buttercream Marshmallow Fondant that had great reviews so I decided to give it a go.

I started with the smaller top tier and the fondant rolled out nicely to cover the cake. Then it was on to the bottom tier. Rolled it out and it stuck to my mat. Drats!! Roll number two stuck again. What the heck?? I ditched the mat and dusted my countertop with powdered sugar in preparation for the next attempt. Third time was not the charm. It stuck again!

Now I am getting spun up. It was bad enough to deal with the raspberry fiasco. I don't need the fondant to keep sticking. Solution - internet! I found a suggestion to use corn starch and to make sure to keep lifting the fondant as it is being rolled out. I mixed the corn starch with powdered sugar and presto! No sticking.

Bottom Tier Completed

I stacked and pinned the two layers together since we would have a ninety minute drive Sunday morning to the wedding. I wanted to make sure the top layer stayed on the cake. Then I added the ribbon trim, icing scroll work and the tiny fondant flowers I made the previous weekend. All that needed to be added was the fresh flowers before the reception started.

Ready for Fresh Flowers

 

The drive down on Sunday morning was a bit nerve wracking, especially due to a couple of tight exit ramps from the freeways that I thought for sure would send the cake tumbling sideways in the trunk. The cake was packed somewhat securely in a custom sized box I made, but you never can tell how it will truly travel a long distance in the car. But it made it to the reception with no damage!

Karen and Jim really liked it and best of all, it tasted wonderful - even the fondant!

 

Ready for the Reception

I don't think I could be a professional cake decorator though. It's fun, but a lot of hard work, too.

Congratulations, Jim & Karen!