Let's Make a Wedding Cake

A wedding cake for Bolton and Blaz

If someone you dearly love asked you to make a wedding cake, would you, should you, could you do it?

Yes you can, but get help early and often. If you have friends with pans, wedding books or experience in building structure, barrage them with questions. Here's a list of lessons learned in my first attempt, with nods to those who showed the way.

1) Find good recipes. My friend Chef Amy does wonderful flowers in gum paste and knows volumes about chocolate. Amy likes Toba Garrett's "Wedding Cake Art and Design: A Professional Approach" and loaned me her copy. The book has good recipes and lessons on how to create the products you'll need - from cake and rolled fondant to pastillage and modeling chocolate. Lots of photos and how-tos, but not every step in a cake's journey is covered. Still, the book is a helpful guide to get the imagineering started. Keep casting about for ideas.

Chef Reenie was in patisserie school with me. She loves to do cakes and went over to Britain to learn from Mich Turner, whom Gordon Ramsay has called "the Bentley of cake makers." When Reenie heard I was attempting a wedding cake, she rolled in with boxes of books for inspiration, pans of all sizes, dowels, cake boards and even a Martha Stewart Crafts version of the Cricut Cake Electronic Cutting System.

From the inter-web, I veered over to Smitten Kitchen, Deb Perelman's brain trust. Deb took her readers on a "lessons-learned" journey through her first wedding cake. In "Project Wedding Cake," she explains how she started and in later posts, gives the ingredients and method for chocolate butter cake, vanilla buttermilk cake and mango curd. My bride chose all three for her big day. Thumb's up. They're delicious and sturdy. Smitten wins. So all you have to do now is . . .

2) Start building early. If you want to make gum paste flowers, pastillage pieces or other special decorations, jump in. You'll change your mind on shapes, colors, textures, and break a few pieces along the way, so get into it. Should you buy premade gum paste, use a bag of mix or make it yourself? My reccomend is: Make it yourself. I tried all three gum paste versions.

Wilton's ready to use product is extremely white, and that's good; it's also very dense when worked in the hand and more expensive than making your own. I went through two bags on mock-up pieces before seeking a cheaper method. I tried the bag of mix from CK products and had trouble achieving a good working consistency. I added the specified water and the result was just too dry. By adding a little more water, I ruined it and it became too wet. It was also cream-colored compared to Wilton's white, white gum paste. Didn't like it. Not my thing.

Amy suggested trying the "purple jar," the Tylose powder from Confectionary Art International. I liked it best. You'll need egg whites, confectioner's sugar and the powder. I bought my jar at Cake Carousel for $6.75. It's available on Amazon for $7.84 or N.Y. Cake for $4.99.

Notice that pricing disparity? Try to cut costs where you can, but know that sometimes, you'll have to pay more if what you need is available where you are, when you need it. Fight for every penny but in the end, fight for the cake.

Keep gum paste in the fridge when not using, and always keep it covered; it dries fairly fast. If you're making ribbons and you want to roll gum paste very thin and even, use your pasta attachment to the KitchenAid.

Also in this "start building early" category, get a set of foam dummies, to help you visualize the cake's size and appearance. You'll also use them for drying gum paste or fondant pieces right on the shapes they'll sit on. Buy dummies online at Dallas Foam as Amy does, or find them at N.Y. Cake, Cake Carousel and other cake supply stores. Then you should . . .

3) Bake early. The final week is exhausting. Don't try to make a wedding cake - your first - in one week. Cake layers freeze well, as do buttercream frostings and mango curd. I made layers up to a month out and was glad for it. If you break a layer or two during the final week, just pull another layer from storage (yes, bake extra layers).

And if you've never assembled a cake before, use this time to watch videos on YouTube. I learned a good deal from Craftsy.com in this free mini class on working with buttercream. Another tip: If you're on pinterest, build a board for collecting ideas. That way, the bride can look at your board and give reactions that help you define and finish the cake's look and feel. My board "Bolton and Blaz Get Married" included images of cakes we liked, cake charts and idea starters. And when the end is near . . .

4) Bring in those who know. When not teaching culinary classes for a national kitchenware chain, Chef April assists one of the fanciest cake designers in Dallas. She helps deliver and set up cakes at their final destination, so she knows tips for how to transport, stack layers and stay calm. The day before the wedding, she helped final coat the layers on my bride and groom's cakes, showed how to use both plastic dowels (we used Wilton plastic; pvc I bought was bending, and is it food safe anyway? Wooden dowels may weaken if they soak up moisture); also wooden skewers to secure the layers once assembled - and how high we could safely stack layers for transport. You need someone with this knowledge. As a result of working with her, there were no cake casualties. Zero!

Thanks also go to Chez Juan and inner circle bestie Elizabeth. Yes, on the actual day, bring your spouse and your most capable go-to gal to your wedding party venue. They help, they fix, they urge you on. And then you should always . . .

5) Have more flowers than you need. Buy extra flowers if using them. Fresh flowers are a godsend on cakes (our hydrangeas came from Whole Foods). They cover multiple sins, like areas where buttercream isn't covering well (as on dummy foam layers used to increase a cake's height or appearance) . . . areas where you jabbed your finger into the side of the cake . . . areas where something doesn't line up as intended.

For example, at the venue, we placed the final layer on the top of the cake and saw that it was ever so slightly larger than the layer below. What to do? Have extra buttercream with you to frost frost frost, and when all else fails, add flowers. See those green letters in the photo above, the ones representing the bride and groom (both names begin with a "B)? They're doing most of the coverup on that odd spot where the layers don't match. Draping flowers helps fool the eye away. Why letters in green? We placed the white letters on and they "disappeared" against the buttercream. Fortunately, we'd made letters in two colors and chose the ones that stood out better. Always have backup options!

Finally, taste your cake. How else to know if you got it right?

Assorted Takeaways

*Cake boards can absorb moisture and fat from cake layers, which may weaken them and remember, they have to be part of the support that keeps the beauty standing tall. The Glad product Press 'n Seal is a great way to cover the boards before they go under cake layers.

*Save broken layers. So you cracked the two 14-inchers down the middle, it happens. Save 'em. You may use them to build another piece (see what the shield of Slovenia is standing on in the photo below? That's leftover 14-inch cake). Our other cast-offs are now cake balls. 

*Mango or other curds are slippery when used as fillings and will ooze out into your buttercream. To help stabilize layers and prevent oozing, pipe a ring of buttercream near (but not precisely on) the edge of the cake. (If you have to trim the edges, you won't cut through the buttercream dam and release curd. Yep. Did it on first go-around and crashed about 8 inches of cake). Pipe another ring inside the first ring, and another inside the second right. Place the layer in the fridge and allow to chill at least 30 minutes before adding the curd in the center. This firms up the buttercream. Remember to leave at least one layer without the ring. (I had to bake extra layers because I forgot this across the board, from a s sheet cake to a groom's cake to the bride's cake). Remember, leave one layer PLAIN!

*It's cheaper to buy cake foam dummies than to keep baking more cake. If you want more height, work in some dummy layers, especially at the bottom. Just be sure to have sheet cake for the back of the house to replace the dummy layers, if counting them for servings. One of Chef April's tips - if you have a 16-inch bottom, make that a dummy, don't try to bake it. It would be incredibly heavy in real cake (and as I've learned, the bigger the layers, the higher the potential they crack down the middle. They're so heavy, they can fall off either side of the turntable.)

*Buy the boxes you need for transport AFTER you know the sizes of layers you're using. Otherwise, you'll buy wrong sizes, you will! Count carefully. Measure. Keep a ruler and calculator with you at all times. 

*Visit the venue well before the event. Find out if refrigeration is available, and if it's in a different location, walk through the pathways. Ask for a cart to be ready upon delivery, so you can wheel in the layers easily. In Texas, that refrigeration can mean the difference in success or failure when transporting in high temps, no matter how cool you kept the car. Bring a few tablecloths with you, in case the walk-in fridge smells and you need to cover your cake boxes.

*ASK about cake slicing charges. I didn't read it anywhere in any tips, so you're getting it now. The head chef at our venue said there would be a $2 per slice charge for cutting the cake. Adding a sauce or ice cream would increase the price. Be sure to ask. You'll want to know.

*On this journey, for that's what it is, a true art of discovery, write down what you're doing, on the day you're doing it. Jot down what others say. You need those notes. You need lots of them to help you see the progression of the ideas and tips. What a break it was to read in my notes that Chef April said to start frosting and filling on Tuesday for a Friday night wedding. That still gave me Wednesday to rebuild the first oopsies from Tuesday. By Thursday, I was ready for Chef April to haul me over the finish line. You want to be finished the day before the event. Yes, you do.

*Finally, my "don't forget to bring" list: 

-->step ladder, paper towels, double stick tape, tool bag, waxed paper for covering the tablecloth, trash bag, water supply, extra frosting, ice chest, turntable, scissors, extra offset spatulas and yes, a hand mixer.

Trust me.

A groom's cake for Blaz, with the shield of Slovenia and a romantic treatment of his country's name.