DIY Wedding Cake

DIY wedding cake.

I'm off to help make a wedding cake. My friend's daughter is getting married next weekend and we're coming out of wedding-cake-making retirement to whip one up! Although we keep swearing that we'll never do another cake, this one should be easy. All the lovely bride wants is chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. We know that some guests don't like chocolate, however, so we're also making a couple of side cakes - probably pink champagne and maybe lemon?

We've been working together on wedding cakes nearly 30 years, since her husband's niece (a bride on a tight budget) needed one and I had a budding interest and some cake decorating stuff. Over the years, we've done many cakes together, and we've each done a few alone. It's been fun but we decided a few cakes ago that it's past time to move on! Baking, decorating, storing and transporting a multi-tiered wedding cake no longer works for us. But we'll make just one more....

So why are we starting so early? Well, we bake our layers and then freeze them prior to frosting. This serves a dual purpose - first, we can make the cake ahead of time (a huge stress reducer, especially if something goes wrong) and second, cakes are easier to frost when frozen. So we'll bake and freeze this week and then stack, frost and decorate the day before the wedding, which also allows the cake to defrost overnight. Does this actually work? Well, the proof is in the results, and one thing that we hear with every cake we've made is how yummy it is - our cakes are not only pretty, they are delicious!

Update 1/22/13 - If you'd like to take an online cake decorating class, Craftsy has several really good ones. I just discovered Craftsy and sure wish these were available back when I was learning! (links are affiliate, fyi)



And if you want to try your hand at making a wedding cake, here are my must-have recommendations: