The Wedding Blog

Definitely not the design, or color I'm going to use in the end, but the flavor might be a winner.

The cake-making is quite a saga. I thought I'd post it for general entertainment. The vision: bake a two-tier cake, with two layers apiece. Color the fondant a subtle pink or mauve with a tiny bit of red food coloring and perhaps mixing in a little blue. Wrap the bottom of each layer in a 1 1/2 inch color coordinating ribbon, which is kind of pink and gold blended. Then above the ribbon, but still on the sides of the cake, use a stencil and gold pearl dust to imprint a design.

I used a modified box mix recipe for wedding cake - I'm not doing this big of one from scratch. I chose lemon cake, but instead of adding water I added berry Juicy Juice. I also threw in a teaspoon of lemon essence for an extra kick. I baked all four (two layers per cake) yesterday. This morning started out with the frosting, based on my great-grandmother's orange frosting. The buttercream recipes I saw on the cooking sites used more butter and less sugar than she did, so I compromised between the two. I used orange juice for the liquid and, again, added orange essence for a little more kick. This is to offset the marshmallow fondant, which can be bland despite adding almond.

So I start at about seven this morning by leveling the cakes. And slice my finger pretty deep trying to adjust the blade. A bunch of rubbing alcohol and a band-aid later, I finished. Not much problem there. Then I made the orange frosting. After making it, I thought I probably didn't have enough, but if I made a second batch I'd have too much. I opted for the latter, just in case. Then the hard part: icing the cake evenly. I suck at this. Seriously. I always end up just glopping a bunch more on and having icing a half-inch thick to make up for it. But this time I was determined. First hint I got: use a cake decorator to put the icing on, just use the knife to smooth it. All in all, that was much easier. However, other technical difficulties cropped up. I'd put the small tier on it's cake round and the large tier back on the bottom of the springform pan. These are both flush with the cake. That means once you frost it, you can't turn them without smudging the frosting. So I had to gently slide them off the counter and put wax paper or tinfoil underneath. That helped, because I could turn it better. Here it is partway through: As you can see, it's actually too thin in spots, but I got it right in the end.

Another hint I learned: wipe off the knife between each stroke if you're just smoothing. And at the very end, the hot knife trick works well. But it still took quite a bit of time. Oh, another technical tip: when you set aside one cake as done and start to work on the other, make sure it's far enough back from your elbow that if you jump when the dog barks you don't put your elbow through the frosting. I'm just saying. I also had to barricade the kitchen after about two hours, because I kept tripping over the dog. So it ends up being after noon by the time I'm done with the frosting, and that's without a breakfast break. I sit for fifteen minutes or so and get up to do the fondant.

Melting the marshmallows in the microwave is much easier than the double boiler you rigged up, Don, and they don't burn a bit. Just pull it out and stir every thirty to forty seconds and it melts in about two minutes - and remember to take it out before it's all melted down because, as I suspected, it keeps melting on it's own kind of like chocolate or butter. Then I went to stir in the food coloring. I only used a little, I swear it. However, it was too much. I about decided to start over, but this is just for practice, and I thought all that powdered sugar would certainly make it better. Unfortunately, not by much.

The Pepto Bismol Blob swallowing my cake. Or . . . what was the name of that guy on the Fat Albert cartoon again? The one with the pink thing on his face? That.

But it's just practice, so I keep going. When both layers are covered and smoothed nicely, I go to put one layer on the other. I first cut down the sticks I'm going to use to hold the top layer up. I put them into the bottom layer. I then place the top layer gently on top, centering it.

Then I realize that I haven't done it right. In the very beginning, you're supposed to put frosting on the cake round before you put the cake on it, so it sticks. And I've not looked this up (I'm tired just now) but I bet you're supposed to put frosting on the bottom layer of the cake before you balance the top layer on it, again so the cake round sticks. I did neither. Not only that, but I'd put the top layer on two cake rounds to make it easier to slide on the counter. Which made it easier to slide on the cake. In fact, I could feel it was loose.

So I decide I'd have to pick up the top layer and fix this. Which, of course, smooshed the sides. and then I had to get the cake rounds off. More smooshing. Then I remember that one thing I'd read (you know you've done too much research when you can't remember where) indicated that for ultimate stability, but a stick through all three layers. That connotes no cake plate. So I decided rather than screwing around with frosting the rounds, etc., I'd use the whole stick and put the top layer back on as is. NOTE: I didn't get very long ones, they were actually thick lollipop sticks which I thought would cut better than wooden dowels. So I pull out the sized-down sticks and put in the full size ones, then center the top layer and put it on. Despite my best measurements, the sticks were a quarter inch too big, and now poked the frosting up like a pink circus tent.

I take the top layer off again, cut a bit off the sticks, and put it back on. But now the top layer's fondant was all futzy:

So I smooth it - and the nice thin layer cracked in a small place right on the edge. I think, no big deal: there's hints on how to repair it. I sure can't take it off right now and roll out another. So I try those hints. Problem was, the frosting got "smoothed" along with the fondant, making a nice white streak across the top. I fix that, but decided to leave the small chip alone. If I was really doing this, I think to myself, I'd put a flower there and say to hell with it. Besides, I'm only making it worse.

Then, I think: why not fondant pearls? I already had the gold dust to put on the stencils. I can make little beads and paint them gold. The layers are already too short to have ribbon around the base plus a stencil on the side. So I can put gold pearls around the top, throw a stencil in the middle and call it done.

That sounded like a plan, until I got partway through. Then I see this (I really think this pic shows off the disgusting color best):
No, no, no, NO! So I take off the pearls and proceeded to paint the entire cake lightly with gold dust. That alleviated some of the disgusting pepto color, and camoflaged the crack somewhat. Then I decide to stencil the top of the cake. It blended a bit with the gold on the cake, but looked cute. Then I stencil the top of the bottom layer and voila:

I finished at 5:00 in the afternoon. Yep, it took me ten hours. I think next time I split up the frosting and fondant decorating day into two. And no freaking pink. (I'd only chose it because yellow seemed too light to hide flaws and I've noticed a weird reluctance for people to eat my berries and cream cake, which I usually do in either green or blue). Maybe I should give it up and go for a red or burgundy? Or do something in blue or green - people might find them less weird because it's frosting and not the cake itself.