Help for making a wedding cake?

katglasgow

I am hoping to make my own wedding cake (with help from mum) but we are a bit unsure about knowing how long to cook it for etc.. My mum makes a fabulous Christmas cake so we were planning just to increase the quantites does anyone have any recipies or can anyone give any advice about adjusting the cooking time? I have 92 day guests and 120 for the evening (my family is huge but they are all lovely) so it will need to be a big cake - probably 3 teirs. A family friend decorates cakes as a hobby for fun so it will be nicely presented on the day.
I have been to marks and spencers to see their ready made cakes but worked out it would cost me c. £100 to do it that way and I dont have the money to spare for something so trivial as a cake!
Would really love to hear from anyone who had tried this or has any advice!
Thanks K

Phoebs

call the experts ......... phone a couple of cake shops with the story that youre looking to order a wedding cake etc, and ask what sizes and prices they recommend for the numbers coming to your wedding.

ok you dont care about prices (except then having the knowledge of how much money you are saving of course!), but you should then have reliable size/quantity info

also, for a really moist cake add some cooking apples to the mix....... my nan always did this and hers were the best fruit cakes i ever tasted... oh and dont forget once its cooked to keep pouring the alcohol over too mmmmmmmmm

Glad

THIS is Delia Smiths Christmas cake recipe which is great for weddings etc

if you scroll down to the bottom of that page there is an option to click for scaling up/down the recipe

Davesmum_2

no advice from me but - best of luck with it, and if possible, can you make fout tiers and keep one for all us MSE'rs?? LOL

I love wedding cake! I had an M + S one on my wedding day. It was yummy!!

Best wishes for your special day.

Ted_Hutchinson

glad wrote:

THIS is Delia Smiths Christmas cake recipe which is great for weddings etc

if you scroll down to the bottom of that page there is an option to click for scaling up/down the recipe

If you want to relate the cake tin size to the number of portions this Gretna bakery gives a useful indication. Otherwise you could count up the weight of ingredients and divide by 75g or 100g depending on how generous the portions you want are.

I'd be tempted to do a slab cake with basic icing to cut up in the kitchen for the majority of guests and just have the tiered cakes decorated. You may find someone locally who ices cakes reasonably.

squarecat

Hi,

we had a small two tier cake for show etc
and a cutting cake which was just iced on the top
which was able to be pre-cut and dished out as required.

My aunt just cooked us 4 of her standard square christmas cake
and there was plenty to go round as well as some left over to send to those who could not make it on the day.

I still have both decorated tiers, waiting for some justification to cut into them!

katglasgow

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. The Delia Smith pages are particularly helpful. My mum has a work colleague who ices for a hobby the idea of making a smaller "show cake" and then an extra slab for cutting on the day is also a good one as I would like to provide cake for 120 if I can.
WIll be baking the tester cake soon.........mmmm cant wait to try it!

Boohbah

I made my daughters wedding cake (3 tiers) and just recently, my granddaughters birthday cake.
Is it to be a fruit cake or sponge, I assume fruit from your post.
I usually use two tins, as i find it gives a more consistent result, although you could use one tin but be careful with larger cake sizes that the are cooked through before taking it from the oven.
A 3 tier will be plenty for your amount of guest's.

Good luck with it, I found it most rewarding & satisfying

Galtizz

Important things to remember are:

Wrap the sides of the tin with 4 or 5 sheets of newspaper, cut it to an inch or 2 higher than the tin, wrap it round and fix with some string. This stops the sides of the cake from burning.

If you are doing the whole marsipan and icing thing do the marsipan at least 2 days before you ice it (preferably a week) otherwise the marsipan 'leaks' into the icing and you get yellow patches on your cake.

I have a recipe (somewhere!) which my Mum had as her wedding cake. It says to bake it for the first 2 hours at about 180 then turn it down to 160 for an hour then down again to 140 for an hour. I'm not exactly sure of the times or temps. but you get the idea.

Last, but not least, I always said that if I ever get married I would have a three tier cake, bottom tier a big fruit cake for the 'grown ups', middle tier a sponge cake for the other adults and top tier a chocolate cake for me and the kids

kevinlawry_2

my advice is get someone else to do it

Poppy9

Good idea of having a show cake and a cutting cake.

How long can you keep an iced cake for from say your wedding. I kept mine for 7 years (I forgot about it).