This past weekend one of my best girls, Jen, got married. She stood by my side 5 years ago when Noel and I got married so I was so happy to be with her on Saturday night as she married her best guy, Matt.

Jen has enough faith in me not to go crazy under pressure that she asked me to be her maid of honor (yeah, technically, I’m a matron, but I don’t feel that old!), make her wedding cake, AND give a toast at her reception. Clearly, the girl is fearless. And has more confidence in me than I often have in myself. Thank goodness Eileen returned from her jaunt in Puerto Rico in time to help me bake!

In all honesty though, after our experiment with fondant for the purple squirrel love, this cake felt like a piece of cake. Bake, freeze, crumb coat, stack, finish with gorgeous (but simple) textured icing. The whole icing assembly process was done in about 2 hours, from the cakes coming out of the freezer to finished icing. A new land speed record for us! We finished the cake onsite with the fresh cut orange roses, which complimented the rest of the wedding flowers.

We actually used the same recipes that we used for the purple squirrel love, except this time we had two yellow layers and one chocolate. I confess that for the purple cake I actually forgot the vanilla extract in the chocolate layer and this time I remembered it–which I think made the cake just a touch richer and tastier!

Jen told me afterwards that people were shocked when she told them that two of her friends made the cake. Which might just be one of the nicest things someone has ever said about one of my baked goods. Yeah, it’s nice to hear it’s gorgeous, but shock and awe, well that’s a whole new level of awesome!

it’s so much easier to see your babies go when you’re not the person who has to chop them up…

Noel wanted me to call this cake orange passion blossom raccoon. I like orange rose clouds better, because it reminds me of orange roses sitting on puffy white clouds–clouds full of dreams and love.

Greetings from Virginia Beach! No, I haven’t decided to give up living in Baltimore and travel from beach to beach on the East Coast–although that would be lovely! No, I’m back with another wedding cakes on the road edition.

Stephanie is a friend of mine from work, and when she first started seriously about getting married to her long time boyfriend, Brian, last year, I had to jump in and volunteer to make her wedding cake. I think I was still high off the buttercream from the Maine cake or something. But anyways, here we are a bit later in the beautiful Sandbridge area of Virginia Beach, celebrating a beautiful wedding and a fantastic cake success.

We did the whole process for Stephanie and Brian’s cake–which I affectionately dubbed the “Purple Squirrel Love Cake” for its color and adorable squirrel cake topper PSLC for short–a bit differently than the Maine cake. The wedding was Sunday night, and since we were arriving on Saturday afternoon, that gave us very little time on the ground at the location to prep. So on the advice of my professorial baker friend Belton, we baked, crumb coated, and boxed all of cakes in Baltimore, then transported them in pieces to Virginia. We tried to keep the car as cold as possible for the ride, but unfortunately our icing was a bit melty when we arrived, so those cakes went back in the fridge for a bit to firm back up.

Sunday morning we woke up the thunderstorms on the beach, which Eileen and I figured would be a good thing, since we would be forced to decorate and not feel bad about missing out on quality beach time. What we didn’t realize, since this was our first big fondant wrapped cake, is that fondant is on of those things, like bread, that interacts with the air around it. So rainy and wet conditions outside meant sticky and stubborn fondant inside. There was a bit of concern that the fondant, which we had dyed a dark Raven’s purple per the couple’s request wasn’t going to be our friend in the end. But we took a deep breath, drank some wine, rolled very slowly, and turned often.

Our patience paid off, and the final fondant wrapped cakes were beautiful, and SO PURPLE! As we stacked them, we played around with the border a bit and came up with the idea of twisting the purple and white fondant together to make the rope border, which I loved for its clean and polished look. I have to give credit where it’s due–Eileen said fondant was going to be easy, and it was. And since we make our own fondant (using this recipe) it doesn’t taste awful like most industrial fondant. I actually had people last night telling me they had more cake so they could eat more fondant!

I was so happy with how this cake turned out. And more importantly, Stephanie and Brian were happy with the cake. It was purple and it was delicious. Everything worked, from the fondant to the middle Ravens themed funfetti layer. We have another successful wedding cake under our belts! But we can’t bask in our glory for too long, since we’re doing another wedding cake in two weeks. And for some extra added fun, I’m matron of honor in that wedding!

In case anyone is wondering, we used some of my standard recipes for this cake. A double batch of one bowl chocolate cake and the vanilla buttermilk cake with Ravens sprinkles for the funfetti effect.

And now for some more cake fun shots:

Nice…

…not so nice…

Stephanie got Brian good…cake up the nose!

None on the dress!

So where were we? Oh yeah, I had a cake to share with you!

After a major furniture rearrange in our rental house and the better part of a day, we had one beautiful cake. It’s amazing what 18 sticks of butter and 7 pounds of powdered sugar can turn a humble blueberry cake into!

And you know what? This cake was fun to put together! Amazingly not stressful for such beautiful results! Eileen and I just hit a rythmn with this one and everything fell into place. In the morning I manned the mixer making batch after batch of Martha’s beautiful buttercream while Eileen crumb coated. Then in the afternoon, we iced finished layers and assembled in record time. We were so not stressed, we took a lunch and shopping break midway through the process. I think that low stress level upped the love in the final product.

Adorable (homemade!) fondant turtle cake toppers. I know someone is going to ask, so I’ll tell you, they were a request from the bride. There’s a story out there about the turtle pond and the couple’s love!

After the ceremony, I couldn’t wait for the cutting! Ryan and Eli were nice enough to bring us up and introduce us to their guests before taking the first slice…

…and sharing it nicely.

After that first piece, it was all a blur for me. The cake went so fast–with many, many people coming back for seconds before we were even done cutting–I had to have Noel snag me a piece and hide it to make sure I even got one! I’m glad he did, since the cake was delicious–moist with tiny Maine blueberries sprinkled throughout, a crumble between the layers, and a wonderfully thick coating of buttercream.

All night long Eileen and I had people coming up to us telliing us how delicious the cake was, with several people saying it was the best wedding cake they had ever had. There were no sad pieces left on tables at the end of the night–all of it was eaten!

So, all in all, I would say this cake was a smashing success! We went, we baked, and we shared one fantastic evening with a great couple. Thanks again to Ryan and Eli for letting us be a part of your big day! We wish you all the happiness in the world as you start out your lives together!

And for you dear readers, here’s the link to the first part of this story (in case you missed it!).

So you all know I went to Maine for my summer vacation (as evidenced by the lobster sightings) but I don’t know if I ever told you why.

They’re why. They are Ryan and Eli. Ryan is one of Noel’s oldest friends. Eli is his rockin fiancee wife. And they were getting married, at Eli’s family’s house in Maine. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me!

And guess what else? They asked us to bake their wedding cake! SQUEE! So Eileen and I packed up our mixers, 25 pounds of flour, a ridiculous amount of powdered sugar, half of the rest of our kitchens, oh, and our husbands, and headed off to Maine for the week!

Baking a wedding cake from scratch is always an adventure, but baking one in an unknown kitchen is extra fun. Like when you get there and realize you have an apartment and not a kitchen oven. That doesn’t work so well for a 14 inch round–thanks again to Sue and Jon for letting us steal their oven for an afternoon, or otherwise, this story might not have such a happy ending!

But luckily, it does have a happy ending, one full of butter, sugar, fresh, hand picked wild Maine blueberries, love, friends, and fun. Thanks to way too much overplanning on mine and Eileen’s part, the cake went off without a hitch. We had the perfect recipe, good upper arm strength, and a delightful buttercream. And it all came together beautifully.

I’m sure right now you’re ready for a picture of the cake. But you know what? Good things come to those who wait. So come back later this week to see us put it together and the final product–but as a preview, I think it may be the most beautiful cake we’ve ever made!

Something to add to the list of things you may not have known about Beth–I used to be quite the little athlete.

I played a little bit of everything–including one ill fated season of basketball–but my main sports were softball and soccer, both of which I played for over 10 years with the Freedom Optimist Leagues.

So when my mom asked if I would be willing to make a big cake for Softball’s 2010 Opening Day Celebration, I agreed. Because what’s better than giving back to the program that gave me so much? And I knew there would be lots and lot of adorable kids all geared up for another season of softball. And really who can say no these faces? Not me.

But since I’ve already shared the recipe I used for the cake with you, I decided to do a tutorial. A how to assemble a cake so ridiculously large you think no one will ever finish it, but it’s gone in 45 minutes, tutorial.

Yeah. Seriously.

*Don’t forget to enter the Reusable Grocery Bag Giveaway!*

How to Assemble a Really Big Cake
A Tutorial

Although it may seem simple to assemble a really big cake, it’s actually a bit more work than just plopping the two (or in this case, four) individual cakes together. If you want your cake to look good, you need to make sure the cakes are relatively level, and that your icing is uniform. The tips below should help you get good results, even if you’re not a cake pro!

Step 1: Try to get your cakes to come out of the oven as level as possible. There’s a reason I love my go to big cake recipe–those cakes bake level. Also, pick a cake that is firm, with a tight crumb, but won’t dry out. You don’t want something that is going to break in half when you go to move it, but you also want it to taste good! Again, the go to recipe is a winner in this category.

Step 2: Before you start icing and assembly, make more icing than you think you could ever possibly need. Icing is your glue, but it’s also your corrective tool. If your cake sags in the middle or is a bit uneven, you’re going to use icing to even it out. And this isn’t just a trick for amateurs–have you ever noticed how much icing is on a wedding cake?

Step 3: Make sure you have a large cake board at the ready to put your cake on. This cake is going to be heavy, so foam board or heavy duty cardboard is best. Put some icing on the board before you put the cake on, this will help keep the cake in place.

Step 4: See that picture above where the edge of the cake looks shaved off? That’s on purpose. After you put one layer on top of the other (with lots and lots of icing in between–the cake will soak some of it up!) and line them up as best you can, take a look at the cake from all angles. If something looks like it’s hanging out of line, or if it’s uneven, take a large serrated knife (like a bread knife) and trim the edges. This will help your cake look professional in the end.

Step 5: Crumb Coat! The biggest difference between professional and amateur cakes is the crumb coat, which is a thin coat of icing which will lock in the crumbs from the cake. This should be as thin as you can get it, then you need to let is set so it will hold the crumbs. If you’re using a shortening based icing the crust will form after a few minutes of the cake setting out in the air, but if you’re using a butter icing, put the cake in the fridge for a few minutes to encourage the icing to set.

Step 6: Ice it thick. Use lots and lots of icing to ice your cake, and use it even out places where the cake looks saggy or uneven. No one will notice that the cake underneath all that icing is uneven, they’ll be way too impressed with that flat expanse of a cake! Once you have the icing on and it’s relatively even, and crusted, use an icing towel or a regular old Viva brand paper towel to smooth out your icing. By gently rubbing the towel (I find a circular motion works best), you’ll be able to get that super smooth look.

Step 7: Decorate! This is the fun part, and (for me at least) the easy part! All of that smoothing stresses me out! We used an image transfer method for this cake, but you can really do whatever you want. My only tips are to use color and to keep a toothpick at the ready, because if you don’t like something, you can use that toothpick to scrape it right off!

Now enjoy! If you’re traveling with a big cake make sure you have a secure way to transport it–a cake carrier or a box is best. Because you would hate for all of that work to meet a tragic end!

And don’t forget to grab a piece before it’s gone!

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!

I have a confession to make. Since I first got into making big beautiful layer cakes about 2 years ago, I’ve really, REALLY wanted to make a wedding cake. A cake that not only looked good, but also tasted fantastic. Call me crazy, but it was my personal equivalent of running a marathon–something I wanted to do at least once, just to prove to myself that I could do it.

But how do you ask someone to make their wedding cake when you’ve never done one before? Well luckily, someone asked me.

About a month ago, my mom sent me an email asking if I would be interested in making a wedding cake for one of her employees. I agreed to do the cake pretty quickly–and then realized what I had done–I had agreed to make a cake for a reception Saturday, November 28th, the Saturday AFTER Thanksgiving. EEK! A day I had already scheduled a dinner party. DOUBLE EEK!!

As I started a major panic, Noel tried to calm me down by suggesting that I call Eileen. You remember Eileen right? Well we did a couple of baby shower cakes together this past summer, and Eileen is from a long line of wedding cake creators. Not only did she agree to help, but of course being Eileen she had a ton of fantastic ideas about how to put thing together and how to decorate!

After a whole bunch of research and some help from the ladies at the Cake and Wedding Cottage, we embarked on our experiment this past weekend, with the baking of the cakes on Saturday. ALL DAY on Saturday. On the advice of the ladies at the Cake Cottage we decided to do a yellow cake for our 12-inch base tier, with an 8-inch red velvet tier (the bride’s favorite) and a 6-inch cake topper tier. Eileen brought her mixer over and we had dueling mixers going as she put together the red velvet and I worked on the yellow butter cake.

Phew! It was a lot of work! The actual putting together of the cakes wasn’t so hard (even though we ended up making super big batches of each) but the baking itself was pretty time consuming, since we only had one oven and a total of six cakes to bake. Five hours after we started, we had our tiers–perfect, even and level–and ready for the freezer. And we had a bonus baby bundt, a yellow butter and red velvet swirl made with the leftover batter!

Red Velvet Cake
Adapted from Baked

We had been warned by the ladies at the Cake Cottage that red velvet could be notoriously hard to work with. So we decided to use a recipe from my go to source–the Baked cookbook. Their recipe was for a triple layer cake, so I felt comfortable that we should be able to do a double layer cake with it. The recipe below is for a single triple layer version of the cake–we doubled it though to fill our 2 8-inch tiers and 2 6-inch tiers, and had a bit leftover to stir into the bundt above. We also used only butter in this recipe, even though it called for shortening, because I’m scared of Crisco.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons red gel food coloring (see note below)
• 1/4 cup boiling water
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened, cut into small pieces
• 1 2/3 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter three 8-inch round cake pans, line the bottoms with parchment paper, and butter the parchment. Dust with flour, and knock out the excess flour.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the cocoa powder, food coloring, and boiling water. Set aside to cool. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and shortening until smooth. Scrape down the bowl and add the sugar. Beat until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Stir the buttermilk and vanilla into the cooled cocoa mixture. Sift the flour and salt together into another medium bowl. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture, alternating with the cocoa mixture, to the egg mixture in three separate additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Beat until incorporated. In a small bowl, combine the vinegar and baking soda and stir until the baking soda dissolves; the mixture will fizz. Add to the batter and stir until just combined.
4. Divide the batter among the prepared pans and smooth the tops. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of each cake comes out clean, about 30 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through the baking time. Transfer the cakes to a wire rack and let cool for 20 minutes. Invert the cakes onto the rack, remove the pans, and let cool completely. Remove the parchment.

Vanilla Buttermilk Cake
Adapted from Sky High

This recipe makes a lot of cake–15 3/4 cups to be exact. The Sky High cookbook has recipes for this cake sized to other sizes–including a 3 6-inch tiers and 3 9-inch tiers. Those recipes are widely available around these interwebs, so I’m going to post the big old monster recipe we used for our cake. This recipe makes so much batter, it has to be mixed by hand and you have to bake each 12 inch layer by itself in the oven. But it is sooo worth it!

Ingredients:

• 6 2/3 cups cake flour
• 4 1/3 cups sugar
• 3 tablespoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 pound, plus 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 3/4 cups buttermilk
• 9 whole eggs
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter 12 inch round cake pans. Line the bottom of each pan with a round of parchment paper or waxed paper and butter the paper.
2. Combine the cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large mixer bowl. With the mixer on low speed, blend for 30 seconds. Add the butter and 2 cups of buttermilk (this will make a mess all over your counter, even if you use your mixer shield!). Mix on low speed briefly to blend; then raise the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Because this is such a large amount of batter, at this point, you will need to finish the cake by hand.
3. Pour the batter into a very large (10-12 quart) shallow bowl. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the whole eggs, yolks, vanilla, and the remaining 3/4 cup buttermilk until well blended. Pour one-third of mixture into the cake batter and fold in completely with a large rubber or silicone spatula. Repeat this step twice with the remaining egg mixture, folding it completely after each addition. There will be about 15 3/4 cups of batter. Measure out 5 1/4 cups of batter for each of the 3 pans.
4. Bake for about 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 15 minutes.
5. Turn the layers out onto wire racks by placing a rack on top of a pan, inverting it, and lifting the pan. Peel off the paper liners and let cool completely.

Since our wedding isn’t until NEXT weekend, we put each of our cakes on its own foil wrapped piece of cardboard, then triple wrapped them all individually for freezing. Yeah, I know you would think freezing a cake would degrade it’s taste, but our experience with the baby shower cakes was that as long as the time in the freezer is relatively short (less than a week) you can’t even tell it was frozen, and it makes handling the layers a lot easier. Which we will definitely need, since stacking this cake up is going to be one enormous challenge for next Friday. So we better not eat too much turkey on Thursday, cause we gotta be sharp on Friday!

Come back next weekend to see how this all stacks up!