Crafting A Wedding Cake: A Step-By-Step Guide

Making a wedding cake from scratch is a challenging but rewarding endeavour. It requires careful planning, practice, and specialised equipment. Here are the steps to make a simple yet elegant wedding cake:

1. Research: Study professional wedding cake bakers' techniques and order forms to understand the process and requirements. Consider the number of tiers, cake size, flavours, fillings, and decorations.

2. Planning: Determine the costs, including ingredients, tools, and time spent. Order supplies early, including pans, cake boxes, piping bags, dowels, and cake rounds.

3. Practice: Bake and decorate cakes ahead of time to improve your skills and finalise recipes. Freeze egg whites for Swiss meringue buttercream, and measure and store dry ingredients in advance.

4. Baking: Use room-temperature ingredients and follow a tested recipe for a moist and flavourful cake. Grease and flour pans, mix batter, and bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

5. Assembly: Level cake layers and stack them on cardboard cake rounds, using buttercream frosting between layers. Insert dowels for support before stacking tiers.

6. Decoration: Choose a simple design, such as a semi-naked or fully frosted cake, and practice piping and decorating techniques. Fresh flowers, berries, and a cake topper can add a beautiful finishing touch.

7. Delivery: Transport the cake carefully with moral support. Set up the cake at the venue, ensuring it is centred and stable.

Choosing a flavour

However, if the couple has a favourite flavour or a unique request, you can get creative and experiment with different options. Some popular alternatives to vanilla include chocolate, red velvet, carrot cake, lemon cake, and marble cake. You can also add a twist to a classic vanilla cake by incorporating different frostings, fillings, and flavourings. For example, you could add extracts like almond, lemon, orange, or coconut to your frosting, or mix in some raspberry jam for a fruity touch.

If you're feeling adventurous, you might want to try more unique flavours like apple-cinnamon, rose water vanilla, banana, champagne, or even a chocolate-covered strawberry cake. The possibilities are endless! Just remember to consider the couple's tastes and the overall theme or atmosphere of the wedding when making your decision.

Additionally, don't be afraid to mix and match flavours for each tier of the cake. This can add variety and cater to different guests' preferences. For instance, you could have a carrot cake for the bottom tier and a half batch of a different flavour for the top tier.

Finally, if you're making a traditional white cake, don't forget to freeze your egg whites beforehand, as they freeze beautifully and can be used for Swiss meringue buttercream.

Selecting a design

Start with Size and Shape

The first step is to determine the size of your cake, which will depend on the number of guests you plan to serve. This will help you decide on the number of tiers your cake will need. If you plan to save the top tier of the cake for your first anniversary, let your baker know so they can prepare accordingly. You can choose between a single-tiered or multi-tiered cake, with each option having its own advantages.

Once you know the number of tiers, you can select the shape of your cake. Traditional cakes are often round, while a square cake gives a more modern appearance. You can also explore other shapes, such as hexagonal or Bundt cakes, for a unique twist.

Choose the Exterior

The next step is to decide between frosting and fondant for the exterior of your cake. Buttercream is a popular choice for its taste and can be smoothed or given a textured look. Other options include Italian or Swiss buttercream and chocolate ganache. Fondant, on the other hand, offers an extra smooth finish and is more suitable for outdoor weddings or warm climates as it is more stable and less likely to melt.

Determine the Decorative Details

Now, it's time to focus on the decorative elements of your cake. This is where you can really personalise your cake and tie it into the overall theme of your wedding. Consider incorporating elements such as fresh flowers, pressed flowers, painted buttercream flowers, sugar flowers, or other decorations that match your colour palette, venue, or invitation design.

If you want to make a statement, consider adding fresh fruit, greenery, gold fleck detailing, or even plastic figurines. The sky's the limit when it comes to wedding cake designs, so don't be afraid to get creative and work with your baker to bring your vision to life.

Buying equipment

Making a wedding cake from scratch is no easy feat, but with the right equipment, you'll be well on your way to creating a beautiful and delicious cake. Here's a detailed list of the equipment you'll need to make a wedding cake:

Baking Equipment:

• Oven: Ensure your oven is in good working condition and has accurate temperature controls.
• Mixing Bowls: You'll need large mixing bowls for combining the batter and making the frosting. Glass or stainless steel bowls are ideal.
• Mixer: A handheld or stand mixer is essential for combining the batter and frosting ingredients effectively. If you plan to make a large quantity of batter, a stand mixer with a paddle attachment can be helpful.
• Measuring Cups and Spoons: Accurate measurements are crucial for baking. Ensure you have a set of measuring cups and spoons in various sizes.
• Spatulas: Silicone or rubber spatulas are useful for scraping batter and frosting from mixing bowls and blending ingredients.
• Sifter/Fine Mesh Sieve: A sifter or fine-mesh sieve is used to aerate dry ingredients and remove lumps, ensuring a smooth batter.
• Parchment Paper: Parchment paper rounds are placed at the bottom of cake pans to ensure the cakes release easily after baking. You can buy pre-cut rounds or trace and cut your own from parchment paper sheets.
• Cake Pans: You'll need multiple cake pans in different sizes, typically 6-inch, 8-inch, 9-inch, and 10-inch. Choose pans that are at least 2 inches deep to avoid batter spillage.
• Wire Cooling Racks: These are essential for cooling the cakes after baking. Ensure you have enough racks to cool multiple cake layers simultaneously.

Assembly and Decoration Equipment:

• Cake Boards: Cardboard cake boards are used for assembling and transporting the cake tiers. You'll need boards in sizes corresponding to your cake pans, such as 6-inch, 8-inch, 9-inch, and 10-inch.
• Cake Turntable: A cake turntable makes it easier to decorate and assemble the cake. It allows you to spin the cake smoothly while adding frosting or decorations.
• Icing Spatulas: Large and small icing spatulas are useful for applying frosting to the cakes. A straight spatula is ideal for spreading frosting, while an offset spatula can be helpful for decorating.
• Piping Bags and Tips: Piping bags and tips are used for creating decorative patterns and borders on the cake. You can choose from various tip sizes and shapes, such as round tips between size 3 and 7.
• Cake Dowels: These are essential for supporting the weight of the upper tiers. Plastic or wooden dowels can be used, and they should be cut to match the height of the lower tier.
• Bench Scraper: A bench scraper helps smooth out the frosting on the sides of the cake and create a neat finish.
• Decorative Elements: Fresh flowers, cake toppers, fondant shapes, or other decorations can be added to enhance the cake's appearance.
• Refrigerator Space: Clear a large space in your refrigerator to store the assembled cake before transportation. You may need to remove a shelf to accommodate the cake's height.
• Transportation Box: Invest in a sturdy cake transportation box to safely move the cake from your preparation area to the wedding venue. Ensure the box is large enough to accommodate the cake's dimensions.

Practising the cake

Practising making a wedding cake is a great way to build your confidence and skills. Here are some tips to help you prepare:

Practise the cake recipe

It's a good idea to bake the wedding cake flavours for festive occasions to perfect the recipes and adjust them to fit the wedding day pan size. This will also help increase your comfort level with baking cakes through sheer repetition. You can serve these practice cakes at parties or showers, so the cake doesn't go to waste.

Practise icing and decoration

If you're planning to ice the cake, it's a good idea to practise this skill as well. You can use styrofoam cake rounds meant for practising piping skills, or you can use the real cake layers you've stashed in your freezer. Practise blending colours and creating the desired texture on the icing.

Get comfortable with assembling the cake

Building a cake isn't as scary as it seems. Each layer is built on cardboard cake rounds, with a slightly larger size than the cake itself to allow for easier movement in and out of the fridge. Layer cakes are stabilized with a pattern of dowels, and a parchment round goes on top to keep the icing from sticking to the layer above.

Plan for transportation

When it's time to deliver the cake, bring moral support! It's helpful to have someone to drive while you take care of the cake. They can also be an extra pair of eyes to ensure the cake is centred and secure during transport.

Making the cake

Ingredients

Firstly, you'll need to gather your ingredients. For a simple, moist white cake, you'll need: butter, eggs, vanilla extract, all-purpose flour, baking powder, and baking soda. You can also add sour cream for a richer flavour. If you want to make a vanilla cake, you'll need cake flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, butter, vanilla extract, egg whites, and milk.

Preparation

Before you start baking, preheat your oven to 325-350°F (depending on the recipe). Grease your cake pans with butter or non-stick spray and line them with parchment paper. If you're making a tiered cake, you'll need pans in different sizes, such as 9x13 inch, 10 inch, 8 inch, and 6 inch.

Baking

Now it's time to bake your cake! Cream together the butter and sugar, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Stir in the vanilla extract, and combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, and baking soda) in a separate bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and mix until there are no lumps. Finally, stir in the sour cream if using. Pour the batter into your prepared pans and bake for 45-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Assembly

Once your cakes are baked, let them cool completely before assembling. If you want to create a tiered cake, you'll need to stack the layers on top of each other. Start with the bottom tier and place it on a cardboard cake round. You can add a crumb coat of frosting to the cake before stacking the next layer on top. Repeat this process until all the layers are stacked. To stabilise the cake, insert dowels into the bottom tier to support the weight of the upper tiers.

Decoration

Now it's time for the fun part—decorating your wedding cake! You can cover your cake with fondant, buttercream, or naked cake with fresh flowers. If you're using fondant, roll it out and carefully drape it over your cake, smoothing it out with your hands. For buttercream, use a spatula to spread it over the cake, creating a smooth finish. You can also pipe buttercream rosettes or other designs. If you're going for a naked cake look, simply leave the cake unfrosted and decorate it with fresh flowers, berries, or edible flowers.

Frequently asked questions