Patience is a virtue, and since you’ve all been so patiently waiting for me to get these pictures online (a whole day!) here it is without further ado…
Pretty, isn’t it? I think I’m still in a bit of shock that Eileen and I created this ourselves. Neither one of us has even taken a cake decorating class and this cake just turned out so perfect and beautiful. I’m amazed….
But enough awe for now–let’s get into how we put this lovely piece together!
If you thought that baking these cakes was a lot of work, I have news for you–icing might have been even more challenging. As we discovered, icing a wedding cake is A LOT more involved than icing your standard layer cake. First, since the icing is white, there is a need for a good crumb coat before a thick final coat of icing to hide all of those little crumbs. Since Eileen and I both felt more comfortable working with a classic American buttercream than a fancier Swiss Meringue buttercream or a cream cheese icing, we decided to go with that. And since American buttercream hardens after application, we were able to seal those crumbs and successfully keep our final layer of icing crumb free!
Second, the current look for wedding cakes is smooth, sleek icing. A lot of bakers accomplish this look by using fondant, but since we’re not fans of the rolled marshmallow, we decided to use the paper towel method of smoothing the icing to create a super smooth, faux fondant look. The method is fairly simple–use a smooth paper towel, like Viva, and place it over the area of the icing that you want to smooth. Using your fingertips, rub the area until it reaches your desired smoothness. The warmth from your fingers warms the icing just enough that you can move it around and smooth it. Although the method is relatively simple, it takes a significant amount of time and patience to get the cake to look smooth all over. I kept finding myself singing “just keep smoothing! just keep smoothing!” like Dorie from Finding Nemo as I smoothed the middle tier for close to an hour to get it looking juuuust right.
Third, unlike a standard tiered cake (even a monster three tier one) wedding cakes need some internal support. This is something most people don’t realize, unless they’ve made or cut a wedding cake. So it takes some planning and time to cut, place and insert all the dowel rods that are needed to support a cake like this. Then you need something to hide the cardboard rounds the serve as a base for each layer. A lot of time bakers use piping to hide these, but on a suggestion from our friends at the Cake and Wedding Cottage, we decide to use black ribbon (to coordinate with the wedding colors) to create a smooth band at the base of each layer. I’m in love with the clean look of the ribbon!
Once we had the whole thing together, Eileen placed the silk flower bouquets that she had put together from single stems she bought at Michaels. They added just the right flash of color and elegance to our simple cake and integrated the other wedding color, red, into the design.
After 5 hours of icing and assembly, this is what we ended up with. We were in total amazement at our accomplishment, and Eileen and I could not stop staring at our creation. When the guys spied this cake, even they were impressed–and trust me, these boys see a lot of baked goods!
But our task was not yet complete. In fact, the scariest part (for me) was still ahead.
We had to transport our creation from Southeast Baltimore to Woodlawn. On the other side of the city. 16.7 miles. Via the Beltway. SCARY. AS. ALL. GETOUT! The GPS wanted us to take US 40, aka the bumpiest road EVER, so we opted for the route that was more miles but much smoother road. We only had one truly scary incident, where we accelerated a little too quickly through a traffic light and the cake slid. After some screaming and repositioning we were okay, but we took it a little slower after that!
But in the end we made it there in one piece with the cake intact. Eileen carried the cake inside and we reattached the top layer. The bride was happy. We were happy! And our first (but hopefully not last) wedding cake was a huge success!
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I will add that the bride kept saying Thank you over and over again – even after the cake was delivered – Great job Beth and Eileen – the cake was beautiful and everyone was definately happy. Thanks for a great job!!
It is Beautiful……Great Job, I will Print and take to work so show off to all my staff in the donor center and of course anybody who will listen, oh I must add there is a girl that works with me who is engaged!
Wowow that is an amazing piece of work! :)
WOW, Beth, you are INCREDIBLE!!! I’m in AWE!!!
Wow – that looks fantastic! Congrats on a successful experiment!
That looks awesome. You must be so pleased. Fabulous!!! My hubby just walked in and saw this pic and I told him some of the background to this adventure for you and he was impressed with the result.
Beth, this is just AMAZING. I am so impressed with your cake skills :) I bet the bride and groom were so happy with the results.
Thanks everyone! And thanks for your words of encouragement! It’s really great to have a team of virtual cheerleaders when undertaking a project like this!
Amazing! I am very impressed. If I only knew, I would have given you more practice and business for my wedding!
Beth, just WOW!
Well done!
It’s amazing the intricate detail involved with creating such a feat. There should be an official sign made for ‘cake on board.’ LOL!
Great job!
OMG it is breathtaking!!! Fantastic job missy!!!!
The cake was wonderful, you and Eileen did an excellent job, thank you sooo much!! it was delicious as well, everyone loved it!
You are amazing! It looks just beautiful, and sounds like it was very tasty. I think for our wedding, the cake lady actually did some of the stacking once she got the cake to the reception hall, but I don’t know how that worked (being otherwise occupied at the time!). I hope you get more chances to do this!
Stephanie–I’m so glad you all liked it!
Libby–we did put the top layer of the cake back on when we got to the venue, but since our bottom two cakes were relatively small (12 and 8 inches) and we were doing the ribbon technique, we decided to assemble before we traveled. It’s actually more common to take the cake in pieces, then attach them all together with icing on site. It’s definitely less scary that way!
zowee! that’s a hair-raising tale. I also remember trying to transport my Ariel Castle Cake. It was tall and it was in the trunk. I was alone. Though I went slowly and it was only a 10 minute drive, it seemed like hours! Your cake turned out wonderfully! I’m amazed at how sleek the buttercream became with the smoothing technique. I’ll have to remember that tip! I usually just use a very hot dry long cake spatula and a turntable.