A "Home Made" Wedding Cake

Last Saturday, May 9th, my dear friends Crystal and Rob got married. Crystal, knowing that I love to bake, had asked me about 8 months ago if I would make her wedding cake and of course I agreed! She told me that I could make a small "display" cake and just have a sheet cake in the back to serve. However, I told her that if I was doing this, I was doing it ALL THE WAY!

So, after doing a little research, I puchased the book Wedding Cakes You Can Make: Designing, Baking, and Decorating the Perfect Wedding Cake by Dede Wilson. The book is amazing. Dede has a very realistic approach to do-it-yourself wedding cakes. Her two main focuses of making a wedding cake are asthetics and taste, which I found very important because more often than not, the wedding cake looks fabulous but doesn't taste very good. She has very detailed instructions from where to get your cake supplies, how to separate eggs, all the way down to transporting your cake from one location to another. She also throws in some personal stories that she has from making wedding cakes, which make the book warm hearted and entertaining.

For the past 8 months, I have been baking "practice" cakes and making tubs and tubs of "practice" buttercream. Fortunately, I have been able to use a lot of my practice cakes for birthday cakes and parties!

The biggest challenge I had to overcome to make this cake was that I live in Las Vegas, and the wedding was held in Jamestown, New York. In the end, I decided to bake all the cake layers in Las Vegas, the day we flew out. I also had make the buttercream frosting and filling over the previous month and had stored it in my freezer. My husband and I packed up a large plastic tub with all the cake layers (left in the pans for protection), the frosting, and all the cake supplies. We then checked the tub on the plane. Let's just say when we went to get our baggage and the tub came out all in one piece, we were so relieved!!

The day of the wedding, we went to the reception hall and I assembled and frosted the cake, and added the final flower decorations. The entire thing went off with out a hitch, amazingly! The bride and groom loved the cake and I was so happy to be able to contribute something to their special day.

This is what the cake was composed of:

Bottom Tier:

Cake: White cake with bittersweet chocolate shavings and kirsch soaked dried cherries

Filling: Vanilla Buttercream with chocolate covered cherries

Frosting: Vanilla Buttercream

Middle Tier:

Cake: White chocolate cake

Filling: Raspberry Buttercream

Frosting: Vanilla Buttercream

Top Tier:

Cake: Vanilla cake

Filling: Vanilla Buttercream

Frosting: Vanilla Buttercream

Because the recipes and instructions are so detailed, I'm not going to post them (I would have to post almost the whole book!). However, if you are interested in making your own wedding cake, or one for a friend, I would highly suggest picking up a copy of the book I mentioned and practice, practice, practice!

Posted By: Julia