One day someone asked me to make their wedding cake....

So I've not blogged in a while- with good reason (I swear)... the school year was ending (which = craziness), my amazing friend Angie and her gentleman caller came to visit and someone asked me to make their wedding cake.

If you really knew me you would know, in my head I call myself a baker, I would never say it out loud.  I just don't think I'm there yet.  I dream about being a baker and renting the house next door to use as my working kitchen and selling things out of my home.   If you really, really knew me you would know that I dream of leaving my job and opening a little bakery & cafe... The key word is dream.  I want these things to happen, I dream about them, but I haven't gotten around to figuring out how to get there....

Then one day someone asked me to make their wedding cake and it all got real.  Some how all this talk and dreaming had allowed someone to think I was capable to making their wedding cake.  When she first asked in my mind I was like "Shit! What have I done! I clearly have been bragging too much about my cake making abilities!"  Out loud I heard myself saying "Yeah, I think I could do that.  What were you thinking about for the style of the cake?"  So began the adventure of making my first wedding cake...

When I say adventure, I mean adventure.  Not only would this be my first wedding cake, but it would be 3 tiers and I would have to transport it 4 hours away.  Maybe to you this sounds like an awful lot to take on, but once I said yes I viewed it as a challenge, and I would not back down!  I was going to give my friend the best wedding cake I could make.

I researched the best pans for square corners (Parrish Magic Line - not the cheapest pans, but they cook like a dream!  All the cakes come out evenly done without humps in the middle!).  I researched recipes for cakes, fillings, and frostings.  I researched how to assemble and transport cakes...  It was a wonderful learning experience.

I considered going into a step by step process of how and what I did... but well that would be the world's longest blog!

The one thing I would pass on to those of you willing to take the plunge and make a wedding cake is...

Practice.  Practice EVERYTHING.

I had brand new pans and I was using a new cake recipe and 2 new fillings.  Practicing my new cake and was the best thing I could have done.  It turned out the recipe was super dense and heavy.  None of my practice cake testers liked it.  One thing I didn't practice was using the 10" pan, in the name of saving ingredients.  In hind site I wish I would have. I had problems with the sturdiness of the cake when slicing the layers and assembling.


A trick I found in my research to keep fillings in check: pipe buttercream around the edges to make a barrier - works like a charm!

The final product!

I would like to thank Chris & Katie Williams for taking a chance on me, it was an honor to be a part of your big day!