Making your own wedding cake?

4cheekymonkeys

I made my cake for my first wedding. It was 3 tiers - the bottom and middle tiers were rich fruit cakes, made following a Delia recipe, and the top layer was a chocolate sponge made a couple of days before the day. My dodgy icing was covered up by flowers wired up by my aunt.

I also made a 3 tier cake for my brother when he got married and it turned out really good too. Again, strategically placed flowers hide a multitude of sins.

My second wedding last year was a very quiet do with only 20 people attending. Our wedding cake was also our dessert. Two different sized chocolate birthday cakes bought from tesco and stacked on top of each other, the happy birthday bit was removed and I added pink gerberas on the top.

We did the usual cake cutting bit and then served up the cake with cream.

Mheather697

I am not brave enough to make my own cake.. my hat off to you all!!! I would love to see some practice pics and some finished items

svjenni

M heather - The best thing to do to practice is start making cakes for any occaison - just do 1 tier so you get to know the recipe. Having all fruit cakes is by far the easiest route as you can make then ages in advance, don't sink and are firm, so are easy to stack.

buy cheap icing and marzipan for the practices cakes. Many towns have shops where you can buy decent tins or even hire then for a few days. I bought mine from Lakeland as I do a fair amount of baking and wanted some nice ones. They cost about £35 for some really good quality ones that will last a long time.

here is my first pratice - its a lemon cake - i'm not going with the dots on the sid, but I was playing with the icing to se what I could do



here is my second try which was for my mil2bs birthday



I used too little icing to cover so the icing is a bit lumpy, I also played around with the filling so h2b much preferred the taste of this one. - Stick on flowers can hide a multitude of sins so if your theme allows and you dont find a modern cake its an idea that can be used to fit your theme - eg leaves butterflys etc

My sister is trying to convince me to start a busines - Just to show you how much your skills can improve the above cakes were made in may/ june.
Here is a christmas cake I made for my sugar flower class this month - I decorated it in class (although my teacher did the writng - i'm not that good!)

nikki2804

Wow, i'm really inspired now. I'm planning my own MSE wedding and would love to make my own cake (at least it will be unique and it wont bankrupt me!!!)

OH doesn't like fruit cake so I was thinking either sponge or chocolate cake. (No date set yet so I'm planning way in advance!!!) And no marzipan - yukky stuff!!!

yumyums

svjenny - wow! Your christmas cake looks amazing. Is it really difficult to get the icing as smooth as you did on there? I'm buying a cake dummy to practise on and will do a couple of practice runs too as I test recipes.

I'm doing a 3 tier cake - 6inch, 8inch, 10inch. Thinking of making the 6 inch and 10 inch as fruitcakes and the 8 inch as another (heavy) flavour such as carrot or maybe a dense chocolate. I might try to start the fruitcakes very soon so that I can feed them and let them mature.

Practising some flowers today. Will post some pics of my failures(?) when I'm done!

kettlefish

My best friend made our wedding cake. It took her a fair while but she says it came in at under £80 for the ingredients/icing/cake board/ribbons etc. It was a rich fruit cake for all three tiers - the only thing is that if they're all rich fruit cake you'll need dowels to give a little support as the cakes are so heavy!! My friend transported the cakes to the venue separately and built it there the night before. We bought the personalised topper from Ebay around £45ish but we've kept it as an ornament on the mantelpiece to remind us of the day!

svjenni

thanks yumyums - icing smoothing doesn't take long to master - you just need to practice - the most important tool is an icing smoother - they don't cost much.

if you roll the icing thickly then although you get less value for money your cake will look much smooter, so its worth the extra couple of quid

Taadaa

I am going to make my own cake, but not sure whether to make individual cakes (not fairy cakes, like mini ones), or to have a traditional three tier. This string has some really helpful guidance, as I am a good baker but haven't attempted working with icing yet! It's given me a bit more confidence so thank you! x

Taadaa

Can I just ask though ladies, I am getting married on a Thursday, do you think it would be okay for me to make the cake on Tuesday evening? x

pretzelnut

My mum is making my cake, 5 tiers of fruit cake. Actually she made them all last weekend, they look and smell fab. She is now spending the next few months, turning them over and adding a little more brandy. Nearer the time i will add the marzipan as it needs time to dry out so that it doesnt cause oil patches on the icing.

I am icing it myself, i havent decided in what style etc yet, ill do this nearer the time. I also cant decide wheter to have the cakes stacked on top of each other or tiered up using seperators.

I refused to pay over £400 for a cake, something that gets demolished & half eaten.

We are keeping the bottom tier for our 2 DD's christening.

My 5 tiers including all the cake ingredients, boards, icing and decorations will have probably only cost £100.