October Wedding Cake

Two years – where did the time go?

First of all, Happy Anniversary, Laura and Adam. 

Now, ready for a little flashback?

So there I was, up to my elbows in three different kinds of cake (chocolate, peanut butter, and vanilla bean), three separate frosting flavors (peanut butter, chocolate, and vanilla), pounds and pounds of chocolate fondant, and a plethora of sugar leaves. Whew!

The days spent baking a variety of cakes, whipping up many batches of buttercream, and then frosting, fondanting, and stacking the tiers went by in a blur. I even forgot to take pictures.

I just have a few shots of the fondant leaves. After tinting small batches of fondant various shades of gold, orange, red, brown, and green, I’d twist two or three colors together and roll them flat. Then I cut leave shapes from the marbled fondant, added some veins, and let them dry on flower formers. 

 

As a finishing touch, I added just a hint of gold shimmer dust to the leaves.

After the wedding, I received a few pictures of the cake.  Now, I never start a cake without a camera close by.

The peanut butter/chocolate combination was a hit. I adapted the peanut butter pound cake recipe from Cooks.com.

Peanut Butter Pound Cake

1 c butter

½ c shortening

3 c sugar

6 eggs

½ c peanut butter

3 c flour

2 t baking powder

½ t salt

2 t vanilla

1 c mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350° and grease two 8-inch cake pans.

In a large bowl, cream together butter, shortening, and cream cheese.  Add sugar and mix thoroughly, then add eggs and mix well. Incorporate peanut butter, mix in flour, baking powder, salt, and vanilla. Finally, stir in chocolate chips and pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake for approximately 50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in cake comes out clean.

CakeCation

By now, everyone is familiar with the term staycation.  Heck, the word can even be found on Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary.  

Always one to be just a little different, instead of a staycation, I recently took my second cakecation of the year (my first one was for my cousin’s wedding in Nashville).  Just so we’re clear, a cakecation is a vacation taken in order to create a cake.

While a cakecation probably isn’t as relaxing as your typical staycation, I was thrilled to have this opportunity.  You see, this past week I was able to make my grandfather’s wedding cake.  How many people get to do that?  For a mostly fun, occasionally nerve-wracking week, I was able to hang up my editor’s cap and don my baker’s apron – bliss. 

The bride wanted to serve BIG pieces of cake to her 150 guests (“none of those tiny servings”), so we decided on four tiers of German chocolate pound cake (I used this recipe) with coconut-pecan filling.  Aside from a cake committing hari kari (I swear it just flung itself out of the pan and onto the floor) and some burned chocolate (yes, I took a moment to mourn the senseless loss), the first day of baking went well.  

Luckily, the second day was less eventful.  After the third batch of coconut-pecan filling, I even felt like I was getting the hang of that tricky boiled frosting.  By the third day, I had a fridge full of filled, frosted, and fondanted cake. 

The perfect shade of periwinkle eluded me Wednesday night (I tend to become a bit obsessive-compulsive when mixing colors), but by Thursday morning, the buttercream gods had smiled on me. Now it was time to decorate.

I began with the easiest tier.  I tinted fondant to match the blue buttercream, sketched and cut out the birds and leaves, and applied them to the cake.  Then I made templates for the piped frosting designs.

A mere 12 hours and 50 bazillion dots later, I had a dining table covered with decorated wedding cake (including a vanilla bean sheet cake).  

  

The next afternoon, despite rainy weather and bumpy roads, I made it to the site of the reception with all cakes intact. My uncle helped me unload the cakes and my aunt helped me commandeer a spot to assemble the tiers.  And before long – voila! 

Congratulations, Poppa and Mary!