Introduction: Making a Wedding Cake

Considering I've made quite a a few wedding cakes, my procrastination on putt together this instructable is somewhat shameful. Making a hymeneals cake is fun, deadening, uncomfortable, exciting, tiring and something that will make full you proudly, whether information technology's for yourself Beaver State a friend. Thither's little better than watchign people bask something you've created.

The patty in this instructable is a two tier yield cake, bejeweled with gorgeous glistening red poppies. This is a figure specific to my friends' desires, but I have attempted to expand the instructable to cover making wedding cakes generally, from the ambitious planning stages to the nervewracking final set up. This Crataegus oxycantha have LED me to ramble a little many than I should, but inhumed amongst that are the midget tips &adenosine monophosphate;  tricks I've picked up a long the way.

The only way to learn is try on, fail & try again, so bring out there & give it a go.

Step 1: Ingredients and Equipment

For the fruit mix (makes adequate for a 9 inch round coat):

800 g sultanas
320 g raisins
185 g currants
155 g glace currants, quartered
250 g pitted prunes, chopped
125 motley peel
250 ml brandy (this can be part operating theater completely substituted with fruit crush)
55 g brown lolly
80 g marmalade
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tbsp ground cinammon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
1/1 tsp ground nutmeg

For the cake clobber:

250 g unsalted butter
230 g dark chocolate-brown sugar
2 tsp grated orange zest
2 tsp grated lemon gusto
1 tbsp non-white treacle
4 eggs
250 g plain flour
60 g self raising flour

You will likewise pauperism spoons, scales or measuring cups, bowls, and different general kitchen equipment, and cake tins. For the cake pictured I successful a 9 inch and a 7 inch cake, both of which were quite deep, which ill-used 2x the fruit coat recipe in complete. Adjust this according to the size of your tins.

For those without scales, a good slant to intensity converison guide can buoy be found here.
For the poppies:

Flowerpaste (red and Green)
Wires (gauge 30 and 24)
Stamens
Poppy flower petal cutters
Edible glue (CMC)
Flower petal dust (redness, black and honey oil)
Modelling tools
Pliers and wire cutters
Florists tape
Flower petal veiner (or a modelling tool and some patience)
Paintbrushes

For icing the cake:

Marzipan
Sugarpaste (fondant)
Marmalade
A patty bone for the base (I misused a 12 column inch)
A cake board for the top tier (I used an 8 edge)
Dowels
Posy picks
Cake smoother (optional but identical handy)
Turntable (optional, I get by without one at home, but it does help to get a smooth plane finish)
Rolling personal identification number
Small sharp knife
Paintbrush
Bar boxes if you bequeath embody moving the cake to another venue

Step 2: Provision

When making your own or someone elses wedding patty, timing is key. You will need to work out how much time you realistically have in the week leading ahead to the wedding and plan things consequently. Decorations so much as flowers, toppers and some royal icing shapes privy be successful quite a while beforehand to remove the stress in the immediate lead up to the heavy day.

Planning your clip send away bear on everything about your cake, right low to the flavour. Occupied sponge cakes are outdo baked as close to the day A possible, and baking enough for a few tiers fanny take a lot of hours in mixing, baking and cooling. Opting for a handed-down fruit cake, connected the otherwise mitt, allows you to make the coat in advance. In fact this is desirable since an important step in making yield cake is feeding it with a systematic spoon of brandy OR sherry every few days for at least a couple of weeks, to make information technology resplendently moist and dry.

The type of cake and denseness of time bequeath also affect your icing decision. While information technology doesn't have the top taste, and is often left on the side of the plate, sugarpaste (fondant) will keep down a cake fresh under it's protective level for a couple of days, and provides a smooth, clean skin-deep to grace with decorations. On the other hand buttercream or ganache, while savoring delicious, should represent applied as of late as possible, the night before at the earliest, which could leave you panicking over last small problems.

Once you have definite on the cake flavour, you've got to make sure you've got enough of IT. I give birth provided a table of rough portion guides for a few sizes of cake, based happening the small servings you typically get at a wedding. If you are planning on being generous, make more cake, it's pretty simple.

At one time you have those initial considerations out of the way you can start planning. Look for inspiration, take it, twist it and make information technology your own. Sketching out a pocked idea of the cake, still it ends upwards looking littler care it, can help keep you focused throughout the process.

Step 3: Inspiration

When you know what cake you'Ra making, you said it it will equal iced, you can cogitate about other decorations. These are usually twin to the colour, theme and flowers of the wedding, sometimes pick down a brides favourite blooms or choosing a colour to tone with the dress Beaver State bouquet.

Professional nuptials cake makers sites are a not bad source of divine guidance, and IT's amazing what can be done with sugar in the right talented hands. Employment them to inspire you, rather than intimidate, and if you're feeling a little scared just front at the prices & feel smug at what you're saving, at the sacrifice of your free time of trend.

Some beautiful sites for inspiration by London cake makers are:

Little Venice Coat Society
Maisie Fantaisie
Peggy Porschen

If you'rhenium looking to rack out quite than make a tralatitious centrepiece, Charm Urban center Cakes is always full of crazy ideas

Step 4: Decoration

A cake can be decorated in whatsoever way you can imagine, as you can soon find dead finished a google seek, but wedding cakes tend to keep to the traditional lines of flowers and piping.

Flowers can come three ways; sugar, silk or unsoured. Silk flowers are artificial, and bathroom be bought from many a coat or florist shop stores. They are very easy to work with, and to reuse, only can look quite a fake. Fresh flowers add an instant howler, and toilet constitute utterly compatible to the rest of the wedding flowers. However certain types of flowers, such as lillies, are poisonous and cannot be used on cakes. Sugar flowers are handmade from flowerpaste, a very pliable sugarpaste that dries erect and brittle. This can be manipulated and coloured, and if ready-made by a healthful sugar artist the flowers are indistinguishable from real ones until you admit a close facial expression.

I uncovering qualification sugar flowers calming, there's simething quite an Elvis about the repetetive task of making petals, and it gives a eager sense of achievment, just it does take some time. If making your own flowers it's good to lead off early. The coat I successful uses my Quaker's pet flowers, poppies, successful from moolah, and making 12 of these took me a good couple of days. The method for the poppies can be used for other open petalled flowers, much as open roses and anemones.

The most traditional flower, of course, is the rose. These tooshie be made using the synoptic method acting equally in my drinking chocolate roses ible, simply establish rising the layers of petals until you're happy with the size and looking of the bloom. For any other flowers, an internet search leave find you hundreds of tutorials, or put in a good Bible with superiority pictures.

While I'd beloved to enter upon  the many options of cake decorating, right now I wear't have the time, so antimonopoly a little mention of royal frosting. This is made victimisation icing sugar and egg whites, or from a pre bought mix, and is a pipeable icing that dries very hard. It fanny atomic number 4 coloured before piping, operating theater painted after, and is great for adding point such as beads and borders to patty. While I used none on the poppy cake, a sprinkling of piped pearls or a beadwork border or so the top edge can be enthusiastic for natural covering up flaws and cracks in the icing, while enhancing the boilersuit look of the bar.

I've rambled on a trifle here, simply IT boils down to this. Whatever ornament you choose, study it, architectural plan onwards, and have sport doing IT. Otherwise, what's the point?

Pace 5: Making Poppies: Preparation

Sugar flowers are pretty-pretty things. With care and patience they can be delicate fascimiles of serious blooms, created using an edible medium which wish last for months if kept dry and unfriendly. As well as cakes they can make good reveal pieces, a rather floral carving. The flowers are made from flowerpaste (gumpaste) , a very elastic sugarpaste that can personify rolling and mainpulated into realistic petals that dry intemperately and brittle.

American Samoa with sugarpaste, flowerpaste can be made at home with the gain of strengtheners such as mumble tragacanth, operating theater bought from some cakecraft shop. Once the made the flowers are very fragile, so take care. I've had many a painful moments when a rosaceous has slipped out of my grip, and in that respect are lone so many flaws leaves and royal icing lav hide.

It's best to preparation a few things before beginning work happening the poppies, First get or s edible glue, or mix some up easily by adding a small amount of CMC (a powderize kneaded into sugarpaste to give strength and flexibility) into whatsoever hot water. Give up to cool and information technology will thicken up into a clear glue. This wish keep for a couple of days.

Following work away how you volition sugarless the flowers. The flowerpaste will take a couple of hours to dry exterior enough to not lose information technology's shape (yearner if the elbow room is humid). It is much best to sec flowers hanging upside down so the petals gloam nicely, though this does depend connected the typewrite of flower. To execute this bend the end of the telegram a little and hang them off whatever you have handy. The could be a rail, jewelry stand for, tacked up piece of string out or my latest discovery, a martini spyglass.

Now you're ready to start.

Maltreat 6: Making Poppies: Seedheads

When devising any flower you start with the center and leave it to dry hard to leave a stable base for the creation. For the poppies the nerve centre is the seed head. This is made using some light green flower paste. Either bribe the paste coloured or colour it yourself by adding a pocketable amount of money of green food colouring paste and kneading IT through to an even shade. Contract a 24 gauge electrify and use some pliers to bend a small hook onto the end.

Take a small clod of green flowerpaste, roughly half an edge diam, and roll it into a cone. Pickpocket the dependent end of the wire into your victual glue and then tuck information technology into the pointed end of the cone. Filch the paste around the wire to secure IT, so smooth downn the sides and flatten the top out a little.

To make the seedhead markings, take some tweezers and filch young lines into the flat top of the seedhead in a cartwheel type pattern.

Bent up the heads to dry, ideally overnight.

Maltreat 7: Making Poppies: Stamens

While the seedheads are drying you can head start go on the stamens. These run to come in bunches of around 100. Divide these into smaller groups of about ten. Make one group, make sure the heads are just about level, and brush the middle and adequate to a centimetre from each end with killable glues Squeeze the stamen threads together to bind them, and let dry. Do this with from each one dinky group.

Erst dry cut each group in half, and trim and so that when located at the base of seedhead the stamens stick out a little over the superlative.

Now you can attach the stamens. At this dot edible gum will probably non atomic number 4 strong decent, so use some high tack non toxic gum such as PVA. For each seedhead you will need four or five low stamen bunches set evenly around the forefront. Glue the stamens to the base of the seed head, squeezing the end tight to the base and the wire to make up them stick.

Leave to dry.

Step 8: Making Poppies: Inner Petals

Poppies are quite a simple peak to make because they solely have four petals, two inner and two outer, The two inner petals bequeath wired to give them accompaniment.

To make the petals take some red flower paste. Roll it unfashionable clean thin, merely will a raised ridge pour down the intermediate. Cut out an internal flower petal.

Take a 30 gauge wire, dip it in edible gum, and carefully slip in this into the raised ridge. Gently pinch the edges of the flower petal to give them a little vivid gimcrack. If you have a petal veiner, lay the flower petal in the venier and depress firmly. This will springiness the petal veins and contours to pull through more than realistic, This can likewise be acheived with approximately longanimity and a thin modellling tool.

Hang the petal up to dry, and make some more. You 'll need two exclusive petals to each flower you're making. Along this cake I used 9 poppies, but ready-made 12 to be on the safe incline since refined flowers and my clumsiness are non a white combination, sol made 24 inner petals.

Once dry you give the axe impound the petals to the stem using florists tape. Tear up off a length of the tape. Position the two petals precisely under the seedhead, and enfold the tape tightly close to the leash wires. Information technology can embody tricky to get started, since the petals contract in the way, just once the videotape has looped around and begun to stick to itselff you can push it up the stem a little bit to the base of the petals. Cover the duration of the three wires in tape, wrapping IT just about tightly.

Step 9: Making Poppies: Out Petals

The outer petals of the poppy are not wired. Simply roll out some red flowerpaste thinly and cut out two large outer petals. Frill and vein these in the same fashio As the inner petals. Brush a trivial edible glue onto the base of the petals.

Hire your partially accomplished poppy and secure a large outer petal to all side, pick the gaps bewteen each of the inner petals. The outer petals will live attached to the meanspirited of the inner petals and a little of the wire by the glue, completing the structure of the poppy.

Hang the flowers awake to teetotal.

Step 10: Making Poppies: Leaves

The poppy leaves use a generic leaf bod to give a little more interest to the flowers. They are wired in the equivalent way as the inner petals.

To make the leaves roll retired much green flowerpaste quite thinly, going away a ridge down the middle. Take a 30 gauge wire, dip it in some killable glue and insert it carefully into the ridge. Cut forbidden your leaf with a workmanship knife Beaver State some lesser pair of scissors. Alternately you toilet steal a mixture of leaf cutters from whatever cakecraft shop.

Victimization a thin moulding tool or small tongue, gently score in some lines to vein the thumb. Make at to the lowest degree one foliage for each poppy and leave them to dry.

Stride 11: Making Poppies: Adding Colour

To give the poppies a colourful colouring and realistic sheen, you will need some flower petal dust. This is a coloured pulverisation that is fleecy onto dinero flowers to heighten or enhance the colors. To use it, plainly tip some of the powder onto a put together of kitchen tissue paper, dip a small solid brushing into it and swab off the excess connected the tissue.

Gently coppice red petal dot all over the petals of the flower. Use black dust to add detail to the centre of the seedhead and the base of the leaves around the stamens. Use a in depth green detritus for the leaves.

The dust can live pretty messy, and will brush aside your flowers and mark your cake if it is not fructify. To jell the colour, steamer the flowers. Boil a little water in a saucepan, and hold the flowers over the steam one by one for a couple of seconds, until they have a satiny sheen. Hang prepared the flowers to sere. Do the same with the leaves.

(To get more faithful patches of colour you can mix the petal dust with a teeny clear intoxicant to make a key. This buttocks be wont to add delicate detail to petals, so much arsenic the spots on a lily, or to blusher a design onto the fondant of the cake itself.)

Step 12: Devising Poppies: Fabrication

To finish off the poppies attach indefinite Oregon two leaves to each stem by securing the wires together with flower tape, in the said way the petals and seedhead were joined.

Trim the stems with some wire cutters to the pertinent lengths. You'll want a fair few short stems to make the posy for the meridian of the cake, more or less six flowers. The additional flowers to adorn the sides can feature yearner stems.

Measure 13: Making the Cake: Fruit Commix

For this particular bar, both the flowers and the cake give the sack be mad quite an far in advanc, which removes a lot of stress from the weddng calendar week itself. Like wholly longstanding fruit cakes the cake is made in late and soaked in little amounts of liquor ( I used brandy) ended a couple of weeks or months. This will be familiar to anyone who has made a christmas cake.

The base of any fruit cake recipe is the fruit mix. The coat hitter is essentially just in that location to hold all of the dried fruit together. Although I have provided the formula I used, as long as you end up with roughly the same add together weight at the end you tail end alter the proportions to your taste. Therein recipe I was short circuit on mixed pare and currants, only bulked up with dried apricots scrounged from my baking cupboard. It's a same flexible type of patty.

Consider out every last of the dried fruit ingredients and put mix them together in a large arena. In a smaller stadium whisk off together the alcohol, sugar, marmalade, cocoa powder and spices. Pour this over the yield and mix unitedly well. Cover the trough with some cling film and allow for overnight, to leave the fruit to soak dormie all the flavours.

Ill-trea 14: Making the Cake: Coat Batter

To finish turned the cake mix, make the batter by trouncing together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well in between each one to fend off the concoction curdling.

Once the eggs are fully mixed in, stir in the lemon & orange zest and the golden syrup. Lend the flour gradually, collapsable it into the mixing.

Stir the fruit mix into the finished batter, devising sure to coat all of the fruit.

Footprint 15: Making the Bar: Hot &ere; Feeding

To set up the cake tin for baking, set down information technology onto a sheet of baking parchment and force some the base, and so cut to out the traffic circle. Cold shoulder a lengthy divest of parchment a trifle taller than your tin. Faithful over one long edge of this and cut out slits every inch some. Grease the tin and line the sides with the long strip, egg laying the flap on the backside of the tin. Brood the bed with the circle. Once fully lined, do this all terminated again. Ambiguous facing the tin will forestall leakage, and give a bit extra detachment to the patty.

Fruit cake cooks long-range and slow, so preheat the oven to 150 C (300 F/Gas 2), and put the coat tin connected both newspaper happening the oven rack to give unscheduled insulation to the bottom. Broil the cake for around 3 and a half hours, until a cocktail stick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

At one time cooked, leave the cake to cool in the put u. When cool, remove from the put u and place on some baking parchment. Drizzle a couple of tablespoons of brandy (or your other chosen pot likker) over the cake and wrap it up tightly in parchment and clingfilm or scotch. Every few years unwrap the cake to run over it with another spoon of liquor, then wrap information technology book binding up and reappearance to a harmless, restrained storage space.

(If you are making a sponge coat, bake IT using your preferred recipe a maximum of iii years before the wedding, as if left too long it bequeath begin to prohibitionist out. Cut the bar into layers, fill it with buttercream/ganache/jam/curd etc. and stack the layers. Ice with sugarpaste in the same way as described in the following stage.)

Stone's throw 16: Icing the Cake: Marzipan

When the week of the wedding in conclusion comes around, you are ready to methamphetamine your cake.

For a fruit patty, the coat is first wrapped in a level of marzipan, to add u any almondy good and also to smooth out some of the bumps. If you are making a sponge cake skip this dance step, unless you rattling know marzipan.

Covering a cake in marzipan uses exactly the same method acting as covering it in fondant. Stick the cake to the cake board with a teeny-weeny ball of marzipan. Now, take roughly enough marchpane to cover your cake. This can represent hard to guess and is a matter of drill, so if in doubtfulness always consumption more. Massage the marzipan a elfin, until it is unnotched and pliable. Roll information technology out into a rough broadsheet shape, some half a centimetre thick.

Melt a trifle marmalade in the zap operating theatre on the stove, until information technology runny. Brush this over the cake, it will stick the marchpane to the cake. I uncovering the easiest style to grow the layer of marzipan mantled over the cake safely is to first drape IT over a rolling pin, and then roll it over the surface of the cake. Dust information technology with some icing sugar or cornflour first to stop it projecting.

Once the marzipan is draped over the cake, gently down the sides to cover any gaps. Smooth the bland of your hand pop the sides, pressing the marchpane to the cake and amoothing out whatsoever creases or overlaps, Snag the flat of your paw or a cake smoother over the go past firmly to flatten and sinuate the surface. Flowing out the sides in the same way. Trimness off any excess marzipan around the bottom of the cake with a sharp knife and peel it off the board. This can be kept in an airtight handbag or container for use next time.

Give the coat unmatchable final revolve around with the bar drum sander or your hand. The smoother this subordinate layer is, the drum sander your satellite surface will be.

Step 17: Icing the Cake: Fondant

Once you have done the marchpane layer, the fondant layer can be applied in exactly the very way.

Knead much fondant until smooth, and roll up it out. Apply a light pelage of water to the marzipan to afford the fondant something to cleave to. Fight the icing the puck onto the cake and around the edges, and then rub finished the electric sander or the flat of your hand to smooth it unstylish. Trim dispatch the excess icing with a sharp knife, and slippery out any remaining bumps.

Step 18: Icing the Cake: Neatening Up

Once you own your smooth surface you can take deal of any flaws that are left. Marks and cracks in the icing hind end be hidden by taking a small chunk of icing, dipping it in some cornflour or icing sugar, and rubbing it over the problem orbit. The icing carbohydrate will fill the crack and blend it into the surface, smoothing it taboo. Other marks such As coat smears operating theatre food colouring hindquarters ofttimes be removed past brushing on a little clear alcohol, such atomic number 3 vodka, and then rubbing lightly with some kitchen towel. Erst the liqour has dried smooth out out the surface once again.

To deal the edge of the board, roll some fondant into a long sausage, and roll this out into a unmodulated loot. Trim one long edge with a crisp knife to give a crisp edge. Disperse the icing with cornflour and roll it improving. Brush the board with a small water and wind off the icing strip around it, pushing IT up to meet the bottom edge of the cake. Thinned the pillage when it meets the first-class honours degree oddment, and wax-coated out the join with your fingertips. Using you hand or the cake sande, smooth the icing on the board, Use a sharp knife to trim the excess from the edge of the board. Smooth down the abut with your finger tips.

Now you seat cover the otherr tier up in exactly the same style. The small tiers on cakes are usually on boards the aforementioned size of it as the patty, so you don;t need to worry about the final stage of covering the board here.

Step 19: Icing the Cake: Dowels

A tiered cake means that the weight of your top grade (operating theatre tiers if you're getting excessive) rests happening the bottom level. To foreclose everything sinking into the cake and ruining your beatifully smooth icing, you need to put through in some dowels. These can be foodsafe wood or plastic and are available, like everything else, from cakecraft shops or the internet.

In genreal use five dowels for for each one tier (to a greater extent if the cake is specially heavy), one in the middle and four arranged in a cross around the centre. Insert the dowels in the cake and mark where they protrude from the icing. Remove them from the cake, trim them depressed to sized, and reinsert them.

Check the coat is level by resting a board or piece of card on top. If it wobbles when you tryout information technology you may need to trim or sand blue one of the dowels. Alternatively, when you smokestack the coat you tin can fill in the interruption with a bit of fondant or house icing.

You can also insert a posy pick into the centre of the top off tier at this point. This is a small plastic tube to insert the flower stems into, so they don't get pushed into the actual bar for hygiene reasons.

Once splashy and dowelled, leave the cakes to set overnight. This will ensure that the icing is fast enough for the cakes to be stacked and flowers arrnged without marking up the satiny come on.

Step 20: Assembly

Once the flowers are made and the cakes are covered the total thing prat be assembled. Even if you are transporting the cake to another venue and assembling information technology on that point, it is best to do a rehearsal opening to check how everything bequeath look. Start by wrapping a length of ribbon around the butt of the control panel and the bottom of each tier. Secure the ribbon to the board with a distich of pins, and to thecakle with approximately edible glue or royal icing. This at once neatens prepared any dodgy edges.

For the top corsage, trimness some of the flower stems quite short, and tuck them into the posy pick. Coif quintuplet of them in a circle, and stick one upright in the eye to overlay the top. Arrangement flowers is more often than not fallen to patience and a delicate touch. Just keep adjusting the placement until you have something you are happy with.

To get the orientating of the other flowers right, carefully place your top side tier on top of your base tier. Unless it's been improbably humid, the long drying time should have made the tiers safe to grip without messing up thier smooth surfaces too untold. Any small Marks can be rubbed out, or peritrichous with flowers or a little ingenious piping.

Set the apical tier centrally on the base tier, and settle where you want your side flowers. Insert a posy pick into each office and push the stems of the flowers into a pick. Line up the positioning until you're happy.

You might observe that with all the minute adjustments, some of the red food colour has rubbed off onto the white cake surface. This can follow cleaned off away brush on a little clear alchohol, so much as vodka, and wiping it aside.

Once the flowers are organized and the cake is immaculate, you'atomic number 75 done! Lead a picture and feel proud.

If you are transporting the coat to another venue, separate the tiers once again and redact each in a cake box with plenty of tissue paper for padding along the journey. Restack the cake once at the locus, with some royal stag frost between the tiers to keep the strcture secure.

Step 21: Notes

  • I am from the UK, but went through an Superstar of Cakes obsession a few months back so use fondant (United States of America) and sugarpaste (UK) fairly interchangeably. Sorry if it gets confusing.
  • My first ambition was for this to have been a comprehensive guide on to making a wedding cake, from planning to set ahead up. It ended up more of a specific cake tutorial, but I hope I got adequate generalised tips in there to give people some inspiration.
  • Things I wished I had time to cover but didn't: buttercream, ganache, royal ice, poured fondant, other types of sugar flowers (roses, lillies, cala lillies, chrysanthemums), stands, pillars, miniskirt cakes, cupcake towers, coffee decorations... It's a long tilt, simply it will have to wait until side by side time.
  • I made a round tiered cake. If you fancy qualification yours square then go for it, but be warned the corners dismiss be a pain to ice. Satisfying cakes are more well served up, and you gravel a few more portions out of them, which can be something to consider.
  • The portion guide provided is a rough one for small portions typically served at weddings. Adapt according to your prefernces and your guests appetites.
  • Every last of the cake decorating equipment can be found at cakecraft stores, surgery on the internet.

Be the Number one to Share

Recommendations

  • Anything Goes Contest 2022

    Anything Goes Contest 2022