Practice Makes Perfect

Somehow I got asked to make a wedding cake from a co-worker at work. No one at work has even seen my cakes except through pictures! Her sister is getting married in July 2011 and she requested a relatively simple cake:

THE CAKE THEY WANT

She didn't care if it was square or round, but the bride does want it to have a brown ribbon rather than the purple/gray in the picture. She also wants real orchids - these exact kind and color. Finally, she wants the cake to be chocolate. Apparently KTA (the grocery store) would charge her at least $500 for this cake!

Although the cake is simple, there are 3 huge factors to consider:

1. I've never made a tiered cake before
2. I've never worked with fondant before
3. I've never been paid for my cakes before

But, seeing that the wedding isn't until the summer, I felt confident that I could be able to make the cake with enough practice. So 2 weekends ago I decided to practice. I wanted to start with round cakes since a) those are the pans I have and b) I've heard from the Food Network/WE shows I watch that round cakes are easier to cover.

First, I made the Wilton marshmallow fondant recipe from scratch. With my Kitchenaid mixer, it was super easy! However, I will say that while it tastes a lot better than the Wilton pre-made stuff, it does taste like straight up sugar. Next time I will be trying to flavor it. So that's my first lesson learned...flavor the fondant.

I baked, leveled, filled and crumb coated the cakes in my homemade vanilla buttercream. Nothing too fancy and I definitely wasn't being that careful - Chris kept chiding me to be more careful when I was leveling the cakes. But the objective of this practice was for me to see if I could just use fondant and tier a cake!

Then came the new part...fondant. Our kitchen doesn't have the surface space necessary to roll out the fondant and I couldn't remember if I brought my fondant roller. Chris cleared off the dining room table and found the tiniest wooden roller in a drawer. It would have to do for now as it was about 9pm at night on a Sunday. Rolling the fondant had its challenges as fondant can be quite sticky. But after several tries I had a big enough sheet of fondant to try covering my first tier. Chris helped and I was able to cover the cake with ease! I repeated the process for the second tier.

Then came the stacking. I pulled out my cake decorating reference books and placed cut lollipop sticks in the first tier for supports. Then Chris and I plopped the little tier onto the first. There are definitely imperfections, but I wasn't being that careful and it was my first time making a cake like this!

Next came the decorating. I had bought some silk orchids at the craft store. They weren't the right color, but I just needed them to practice so I wasn't about to shell out big bucks. Chris cut them off their wires and I started sticking them in. Apparently I don't have quite the artistic eye, since Chris got very aggravated with how I was sticking in the orchids and took over arranging them.

I didn't feel like making another batch of fondant for the ribbon since it was late and I didn't have a fondant ribbon cutter anyway, so I just grabbed the ribbon I had lying around for my lei. I used a little buttercream to secure it and voila! Chris got a little nitpicky with his "feedback," but I'm totally happy with this first attempt.

FIRST TIME WITH FONDANT AND TIERING!

THE FIRST PRACTICE CAKE

Obviously there's a lot I need to work on, but I'd say it isn't bad for my first time. I bought a large pastry mat to give me the surface to roll out fondant, I'm probably going to have to get another fondant roller as well as buy a pearl mold to make the pearl chains going around and a fondant ribbon cutter.

The cake was a hit at work...vanilla cake with a vanilla custard filling with fresh strawberries and blueberries - my favorite cake to make and eat! Before I cut it people kept asking me if it was a real cake...of COURSE it's a real cake! Why would anyone bring in a fake one???

Best of all, my coworker sent a picture to her sister, who loves the cake! But I still need to practice. Look forward to it!

I've also been playing with my new diecut machine and it can emboss too. I made this card for a co-worker who's having a really tough time right now.