Wednesday, March 7, 2007

The Cake Saga


So with ridiculous optimism in my baking abilities, I decided to volunteer to make a friends' wedding cake. Some of you may think that this is not such an unreasonable task to assign myself, but let me inform you that I have NEVER made a wedding cake before. I have only assisted my aunt in making a wedding cake for my own reception. As a result, my level of anxiety about making this cake has only begun to increase with each passing day. To make the situation even more compounded, the cake needs to be made upstate (in a place I do not reside), I need to make a cake to feed 200 people (it will be the lone dessert for the night), and I am a bridesmaid in the wedding. What was I thinking? Seriously.


This wedding is April 14th and I have yet to practice making the cake in such a grand scale. The bottom layer is going to be a full 16" round and I'm a bit nervous about that. I have to cover each tier with a stretchy sugary substance called fondant in order to give the cake a smooth, clean look. It is difficult enough to cover a 10" round tier with fondant, much less a 16" round. Needless to say, I am feeling a bit nervous. I am also nervous in terms of stacking four tiers of such a large size. Never done that before!
I have an idea of what the cake will look like. I am thinking a pale sage green colored fondant, a pink striped chocolate transfer sheet around the bottom of each tier, and beautiful gumpaste cherry blossom scattered along the cake. I also found the most adorable cake topper that actually looks a bit like my friend and her fiance. Here are a few visuals...




On a positive and mouth-watering note, the cake will taste absolutely delicious! I am making a fabulous, dense chocolate cake, filling each layer with a flavored ganache (perhaps orange), and covering it all in vanilla buttercream and fondant. It will be served with vanilla ice cream and a strawberry. Heaven on a plate! Yummy!

I am going to fit in a practice session this weekend and I pray that my design goes well. Otherwise I am in absolute trouble with a capital T! Lesson learned on this one...

AndyP

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