Wedding cakes - how much?

Cath_S

Like Hitchins we had a cake from M&S. This was 3 1/2 years ago but I noticed recently that they still do the same cakes. We had 3 tiers to serve to 80 guests. They also sell the stands for a few pounds. If I remember rightly I think it says on the packaging how many the cakes serves so it may be worth having a look when you're next in M&S. The decoration is minimal so we had OH's brother, who works in the kitchens of a posh hotel, pinch another couples sugar flowers of their wedding cake and put them on our cake :eek:. Don't worry, the decorations were heading for the bin so we just did our recycling bit !

Tondella

Thanks Cath, I'll check out the packaging when I'm next in there. I'd like the cake to be plain iced, as I'll be adding a differently coloured ribbon trim for each tier. I'm so excited!!

Lara

Hi Tondella

For 70 guests you would need a 10" square cake/9" round cake, so to have three tiers you would have plenty left over. To hire a cake stand here they are £7.50 plus £15 deposit, so not a great deal. Cheaper than trying to buy one on line or buying permanently. They are quite expensive unless you are lucky. Alternatively you could contact The British Sugarcraft Guild and find a guild in your area, ring the Secretary and ask her if anyone would be willing to hire a cake stand to you. You will also be able to hire the cake tins from a Sugarcraft shop, usually £1 per day plus £5 deposit for each tin.

To save you the task of dowelling, an offset cake stand would be the best one to have. These are my favourite anyway. This would mean you could have the rich fruit cake on the bottom (being the heaviest and largest size), chocolate genoese as the middle tier and a madeira as the top. Alternatively you could have three fruit cakes, 10"/8"/6" are the normal sizes with drum sizes 14"/11"/9".

Marzipan is more expensive than sugarpaste. Try and find a local sugarcraft shop where you can buy it in bulk as a 5kg box rather than separate 1kg packets. This does make it more expensive. It also looks much nicer if you cover the drums with sugarpaste. That's easy to do. The main tool I would thoroughly recommend you purchase though is a set of smoothers, approx £7/£8. These are made by JEM and available via sugarcraft shops etc or from places like Squires Kitchen - although this shop is expensive when you add p&p. Check out www.almondart.com for marzipan/tools/drums etc. If the order is over £50 they deliver free of charge. They are based in Clacton, Essex but their website should give you loads of ideas etc. with prices etc etc. Smoothers help to ensure the marzipan and sugarpaste are nice and smooth and level. You should put a spirit level on the top once marzipanned to let you know it is level and this makes it easier to sugarpaste and also makes it easier to decorate.

Hope this informationa has helped and I hope it all goes well. If I can help you anymore please ask.

Tondella

Hi Lara
that's really informative, thanks, just a few questions if i may. I would like all three tiers to be fruit, so that i can make it in advance, and because I'm feeling traditional! So I guess that means i will have to dowel, please can someone tell me what this is!!!

Thanks for the tips on sourcing marzipan and icing, we sorely lacked a smoother when we iced our christmas cake! But i was thinking it might be simpler to ask someone professional to ice the cakes on our behalf? We're going to have another practice with OH's birthday cake (sponge), before we decide, he's keen to do it himself!

What are drums?

leni

"drums" are basically cake boards!

To dowl, you'll need some plastic "dowls" which are long thin bits of plastic, insert this into the cake and mark off the depth, cut that bit of "dowl" and stick it back in the hole, do this 4 time on the botton tier and 3 times on the second! You second and third teir cakes need to be on a thin cake board that will sit on these dowls and thus the cake will not sink from the weight of the teirs above, it also makes the cake sterdier! (spelling )

You can have a mixture of cakes, as mentioned above as the dowls support the cakes from sinking!

I'm making my own cake too, and have enrolled at night school!

Thus I want a cupcake tree with a fruits cake ontop to cut i.e. http://www.cupcaketree.com/falltree.jpg or http://www.cupcaketree.com/redhearts.jpg

Good Luck

CIS

We bought the cakes fron tesco, added the stands for the tiers ourselves along with the decoration.
Cost about £25 for the three layers and something like £30 for the decorations (I didn't buy them so Iam not 100% sure on the decorations)

bj-sailaway

Not the cupcake tree! A friend and I did that for her niece, but you have to make and decorate the little blighters so close to the day, and the stress of assembling it, you can't transport it done - it did look great, and got loads of praise, but the stress!!!

Have you got a good recipe?

leni

bj-sailaway wrote:

Not the cupcake tree! A friend and I did that for her niece, but you have to make and decorate the little blighters so close to the day, and the stress of assembling it, you can't transport it done - it did look great, and got loads of praise, but the stress!!!

Have you got a good recipe?

you points are taken onboard but we think we're having a wedding abroad so it would really be a honeymoon return reception, which will be on a night so I'll have all day or so to prepare and transport it!

I want lots of different flavours but have a couple of years to sort it, so not too fussed yet! :j

bj-sailaway

That sounds workable, enjoy!