Thursday 3 October 2013

Blast from the Past: A Very Special Wedding Cake Commission

Reposted and updated from my previous blog, Chronic Masterbakers:

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I've been thinking a lot about the past lately; I nearly splorted when I realized it has been over 18 months since my beautiful, smart, uber-rational baby sister married the love of her life in a lovely winter wedding ceremony in February 2012.

I was so pleased and honoured to be asked to make their wedding cake when they first announced their engagement the previous fall. What followed was a fun and informative journey into wedding cake research and formulation of a decision-making process for a wedding cake.

Eventually, after researching many different cake styles and pictures in books and online, they decided on a 9″ round top "bride and groom" cake, and 75 individual wedding cakelets (not to be mistaken for cupcakes, thankyouverymuch) for the guests.

Each cakelet and the main cake had a deep, dark chocolate bottom layer split with vanilla frosting, and the top was a vanilla bean layer split with milk chocolate frosting.  The two were combined and crumb-coated with more vanilla frosting to make a cakelet that was just about 4″ tall.

Each cakelet was covered with handmade white chocolate molding “clay”, then covered with pure white rolled fondant, and placed on its own little 3″ round silvered cake plate.

The cakelet decor was kept relatively simple, with several hundred handmade gumpaste snowflakes in three sizes and four shades of sparkly glitter, from pearlized white to two shades of silver to black.

Each cakelet had a ruby red ribbon around the base, mirroring the bridal gown’s deep ruby red back slit and corset, and ruby floral embroidering along the front bodice and sparkly gems and sequins.  Each cakelet was also pearlized, then decorated uniquely from the others, with the different sizes and colours of gumpaste snowflakes, and large black and red sugar pearls.
The main cake was left plain, with the exception of a ruby red gauze wired ribbon around the base and a handmade bouquet of fabric roses for the top.

All in all, it took me 3 months to help the happy couple plan and sign off on the cake design, a few more weeks to research and locate the items/ingredients required, and then a full week to make, decorate, and assemble the final product, which was ready for pickup by the wedding planner the morning before the wedding.

So, anyone who tells you that a wedding cake is a waste of money, obviously hasn't seen all the work that goes into making one (hint: a LOT!).

I love hearing from our readers!  If you have any questions, comments or requests, please don’t hesitate to leave me a comment below!

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