Wedding Cake Adventure
Posted in Life on 06/03/2010 02:31 pm by enjanerdI spent the week before the wedding getting cake stuff together. Actual man-days was probably 4, including the shopping and prep work Ian did.
A week in advance: Ian’s shopping trip.
- 8 pounds of butter
- 6 pounds of cream cheese
- 6 pounds of cake flour
- 5 dozen eggs
Already had the sugar, 20 lemons (zested and juiced), and pre-ordered:
- 9 lb white chocolate
- 6 lb semi-sweet chocolate
- 10 oz lemon oil
A week in advance, made a double batch of lemon curds. Made simple syrup (unflavored). Pre-measured all the dry ingredients and pre-cut parchment paper for pans.
On Tuesday, I bought the final ingredients: buttermilk, heavy cream, and blackberries. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I baked all the cakes for the wedding and rehearsal dinner and made a double-batch of frosting.
Thursday morning, Ian helped me load up the car with all the cakes, fillings, frostings, and decorating supplies to bring over to his parents’ house. They were kind enough to offer me access to their 2nd fridge, as well as their dining room and kitchen for cake assembly.
I spent Thursday leveling, torting, filling, and frosting the cakes. I also plated the blackberry chocolate cake and made ganache to cover the cake. Surprisingly, I finished 3 hours earlier than I expected according to my schedule!
Friday, I was back over bight and early for a day of decorating. I started with the bottom tier, but was unhappy with my decorations so I ended up starting over 4 or 5 times before deciding the cake had been out too long and should go back in the fridge.
Out came the middle tier… I looked up a few pictures of baskets and different basket-weave cakes for some inspiration. I decided my weaves were spaced too far apart, which was why it looked unrealistic. I also tried applying more pressure to the tube so the frosting would come out more evenly instead of gapping everytime I hit an air pocket. This was also around the time I experimented with the textures on my chosen tip… and deciding, again, that the cake had been out too long and needed to be re-chilled.
After all the practice, the top tier went very smoothly. I tried out a border that I was happy with and then I made some little flowers using frosting and the lemon curd filling. I did learn from that though… put the border on last! Every time I made a flower I didn’t like, I had a tough time re-smoothing the cake while trying to avoid the border.
Once I had the pattern set from the top tier, I took a second shot at the bottom tier. It went *so* much quicker the second time around! After that, the middle was a breeze!
I did the bottom border on the bottom tier and called it a day. I was relatively on schedule for the day, but hadn’t planned for transit time back home to change before going to the rehearsal dinner. We were also bringing plastic & paperware for the event, so I figured we should probably get there on time/a little early. So, I grabbed the undecorated chocolate cake and headed out!
Saturday: The Big Day!
Two weeks earlier, I made Ian do a dry run with me to his parents’ and then to the restaurant to time the route and do recon to check if we’d be faced with stairs, obstacles, etc. I took those times, added some margin, and estimated how long it would take to load the car based on Thursday’s loading time.
Ian’s mom was kind enough to loan us her Honda Fit — super cute and really roomy with efficient design. We were able to load up the car with all the cakes and supplies in under 15 minutes.
We took the scenic route to the restaurant and still got there 20 minutes earlier than the event planner said she would be on site. After the designated time had come and gone with no sign of the event planner, I wandered into the kitchen area of the restaurant from the loading dock.
I found the manager who was incredibly helpful and got me set up with a cart to move the cakes, an area out of the way for assembly, and some space in the fridge to store the cake when it was complete. Ian helped me stack the cakes and went in search of other entertainment while I worked on the final decorations.
It took about an hour to finish up, with plenty of spectators passing through throughout the process. (Ian was bringing by tour groups to get a behind-the-scenes look.) As we were wheeling the cart over to the fridge, Ian spotted a digital scale. I could definitively answer my question of how much the completed cake weighed!
I made a spreadsheet of all the ingredients for the whole project and associated weights for each ingredient, including average weights of eggs and egg yolks. The maximum weight of the cake based on all the ingredients was 40 pounds. Final cake: 30 pounds!
Once the cake was safely put away in the fridge, my responsibilities were complete! The staff set it out on the pretty table and whisked it away after Sonny and Anna did their cake-cutting ceremony and took care of serving it.