Making my won wedding cake

knithappens

I don,t want to spend a fortune on a cake, and i want to serve it as desert.

I am an ok cook, not great at icing but with practice could be good. Was thinking of making my won cake, but don't know where to start. I know i want a choc cake, could be good testing recipes yum, yum.

Even looking at marks and sparks £100 is a lot of money, i dont think i would cost me that for ingredients for a cake for 50 people.

If anyone has any cake baking knowledge, would i get away with making it a week or so early and icing it and it would still be fresh. I have a long time to decide yet, but just looking for ideas.

MsChazzer

Hi, I'm planning to make my own too but I think I'll give it a bit longer before the day, I believe royal icing needs time to harden up as well. Also I think a fruit cake tastes better if you let it mature for a bit. I've not looked into this too much yet but I think for best results you need to give it more time.

Or you could not have fruit cake, I'm quite tempted to have a chocolate top tier!

PinkLipgloss

Hi there,

I have to admit that I know NOTHING about cooking never mind baking - however I did find some interesting articles on the subject ....


http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/how-to-make-a-wedding-cake.htm

http://www.hitched.co.uk/cakes/article13.asp


There is also a video tutorial...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBZ1lMrP43g


Good luck & happy baking!

Lipgloss

knithappens

PinkLipgloss wrote: »

Hi there,

I have to admit that I know NOTHING about cooking never mind baking - however I did find some interesting articles on the subject ....


http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/how-to-make-a-wedding-cake.htm

http://www.hitched.co.uk/cakes/article13.asp


There is also a video tutorial...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBZ1lMrP43g


Good luck & happy baking!

Lipgloss

ohh thank you , will have a good look at these tonight once the kids are in bed.

LilMissEmmylou

what type of cake are you wanting to make? i agree, if its fruit... months in advance is better

knithappens

I really want a chocolate cake. I am not keep on fruit at all.

But looking at a carrot cake as i love this too and so does hubby.

siren13577

I've done cake dec in college, I would recommend that you use a fruit cake for the first tier, if you are going to stack them on top of each other, this is purely to support the weight of the cakes above. If you royal ice a sponge or carrot cake it will easily keep a week and allow the icing to set. Royal icing can be tricky to get smooth but looks really good if you have eliminated bumps and air bubbles which can occur on the surface. The best way to do this is to make up your royal icing, tip out a third onto a clean surface and cover the rest to avoid hardening at room temperature. Get a palette knife, it's best to have a long one and with a side to side motion, 'paddle' the icing, you'll have to do this fairly fast to avoid it drying out, the thing is to keep it moving, this is to get rid of the air that went into the icing during mixing. You can cover the cake with marzipan and I would suggest this as you will have lumps and bumps from the baking, imagine you're filling a wall and the marzipan is your polyfilla, if there's a gap at the base roll a sausage shape and press in firmly with your fingers, repeat this all the way around the bottom, also when you place your bottom tier onto the cake board, do it upside down, so you have the nice smooth base to work with, as the top will bake uneven and leave a slight gap between the cake board and the cake, this is the gap you're filling with the marzipan. Once this is done, take a palette knife and press the marzipan firmly into the gap, go around the cake applying firm pressure. Check the side and top of the cake and fill any gaps with marzipan also, smooth out with fingers or palette knife. Roll or buy ready to roll marzipan and brush the cake with cooled boiled water or boiled apricot jam so the marzipan will stick.
Before doing this make sure you have rolled or have the right size marzipan to cover the sides as the marzipan will stick to the icing and be hard to adjust if a bit long/short on one side. Trim as necessary and smooth top and sides with your hands.

Now apply the royal icing with a clean palette knife, and smooth, as best as you can, allow to dry, don't really worry about any uneven bits as this is the first coat. When dry, gently scrape any uneven bits, being careful not to take off huge lumps, imagine you're sanding something. This sounds like DIY, lol. Apply the next coat, it should look smoother, allow to dry and repeat with 'sanding' and next layer. You can have as may or as few as you want but remember it all takes time.

Slightly easier to do is to buy roll out or ready rolled fondant icing and applying that on top of the marzipan. brush the marzipan with cooled boiled water, again making sure you have enough to cover sides and top. Using your hands smooth the top and sides before trimming as this gives better coverage, gently trim with a clean palette knife, taking care not to pull the icing.

The cake is now ready for allow the icing to harden and you can decorate it in a few days.
You can buy ready made decorations, cake boards and the dowells you need to assemble the cake, the fondant icing (from supermarkets as well, but if it's a large cake you might think about buying in bulk as a 1kg is just under £3.00 from Asda) in different colours and anything you might need from there, as well as cake boxes to transport the cake. You can also hire stands, as well.
I think it might be worth having a few tries first to see how you get on, it will save frustration rather than leaving it to the last minute and I'm sure everyone will appreciate yummy cake. I don't think I've left anything out but if anyone notices feel free to correct me or add some info.

Good luck and let us know how you get on, feel free to PM if you need anything else.

Gingernutmeg

I don't know if it's any use, but I found this recipe the other day and it looks delicious. My guess would be that if you ice it (I'd use a chocolate ganache rather than the nut icing used here) it'd last a couple of days, and you could decorate it with fresh fruit and chocolate curls - you can buy the white and dark 'stripy' curls by the boxful from cake decorating suppliers, and cakes look lovely if you arrange them around the edge (kind of like this, scroll down for the white choc cake with fruit, or the one with choc fingers and maltesers looks fun). The only problem with this is that you'd need somewhere fairly spacious and cool to store the cake, and it really wouldn't last much longer than a few days - this might not be a problem if you're not making *that* much, but might be tricky if you need to make a lot.

For a choc cake, you could make up three or four circular ones, maybe making them deeper and filling them with ganache too, and hire one of the cake stands which have the cakes at different layers, rather than stacked on top of each other (something like this, or this). That way you don't need to worry about support or marzipan/royal icing, and it'd make a gorgeous dessert, especially if you use good chocolate (as a baker, I'd really recommend getting hold of some really good chocolate and really good, dark cocoa, you can get it online -somewhere like this or this - , it's more expensive than cooking choc but it's TOTALLY worth it for something like this)

knithappens

Gingernutmeg wrote: »

I don't know if it's any use, but I found this recipe the other day and it looks delicious. My guess would be that if you ice it (I'd use a chocolate ganache rather than the nut icing used here) it'd last a couple of days, and you could decorate it with fresh fruit and chocolate curls - you can buy the white and dark 'stripy' curls by the boxful from cake decorating suppliers, and cakes look lovely if you arrange them around the edge (kind of like this, scroll down for the white choc cake with fruit, or the one with choc fingers and maltesers looks fun). The only problem with this is that you'd need somewhere fairly spacious and cool to store the cake, and it really wouldn't last much longer than a few days - this might not be a problem if you're not making *that* much, but might be tricky if you need to make a lot.

For a choc cake, you could make up three or four circular ones, maybe making them deeper and filling them with ganache too, and hire one of the cake stands which have the cakes at different layers, rather than stacked on top of each other (something like this, or this). That way you don't need to worry about support or marzipan/royal icing, and it'd make a gorgeous dessert, especially if you use good chocolate (as a baker, I'd really recommend getting hold of some really good chocolate and really good, dark cocoa, you can get it online -somewhere like this or this - , it's more expensive than cooking choc but it's TOTALLY worth it for something like this)

oh wow thank you so much for this, i just book marked all your links. that cake looks heavenly. How wood i go about changing the cooking times, for cooking it in a deep cake tin.

What depth of tin would you recommend for a wedding cake?

I think i am going to do the cake myself.

anyone know of anymore real good choc cake recipes we can try out.

Gingernutmeg

For a wedding cake, I'd use a tin that's a good three inches deep and line it really well - that way it's less likely to scorch or burn. This is going to sound awful, but for cooking times I'd use the same temperature (maybe a fraction hotter) and just cook it till it's done - give it a good half hour, and check without opening the door. If the top looks set, check it with a knife/toothpick and if it comes out clean, it's done. If it doesn't give it another fifteen mins or so and check again. The most important thing is not to open the door too soon What you could do, if you're planning to have a filled cake, is make two thinner ones rather than one 'fat' one, and then just stack and ice them as normal. Saves time with cooking and saves the bother of worrying about cooking times.

Just another thought, do you have plenty of freezer space? It just occurred to me that you could have a go at the recipe and see how it freezes (untopped and undecorated). Wrap it up well, and if it defrosts ok then that'd save you so much time in the run up to the wedding, you'd be able to take the cakes out of the freezer, thaw them, fill them and decorate them without worrying about baking when you're stressed!

knithappens

Gingernutmeg, yes i was thinking about freezing in advance, how long before can you freeze the cakes and they will still be good. I am so excited at the thought of making my own wedding cake.