I woke up Saturday morning and realized, "OMG! Lisa has a lot of faith in me because I'm doing her wedding cake. I mean, this is her special day...the day where EVERYgirl wants EVERYthing to go perfectly. And she has trusted ME to her wedding cake?!?!" Alright, then I reminded myself that I'm such a perfectionist and so incredibly reliable -- there's no way it crossed either of our minds that I'd let her down. Honestly, what an honor to have and hold this project.
The plan was for a stack tiered, double-layer vanilla cake filled with strawberry buttercream and covered with an off-white Italian buttercream. She wanted a clean looking cake decorated with black ribbon and red roses. She also showed me a photo of a cake with a big black bow that she loved. Since they were expecting 200 guests, I opted to build a 4 tier cake (6", 9", 12", 15") with an extra 9x13" sheet cake to be kept in the back.
Week's schedule (this girl has a full-time job after all so scheduling is everything):
The weekend before: I made a list of all of the supplies I needed and went shopping!!!
Monday: 1 batch of Italian Buttercream (7 cups)
Tuesday: 1 batch of Italian Buttercream (7 cups)
Wednesday: Off (I had a work event)
Thursday: Baked 2- 6" and 2- 9"; then 12" and 9x13"; then 2 16"; then 12" and 9x13" cakes (yes, that's 10 cakes)
Friday: Prepare 3 batches of Italian Buttercream (21 more cups) -- one of which is turned to strawberry buttercream; simple syrup, layer with strawberry buttercream, stack the second layer, crumb coat, and refrigerate cakes for at least 30 minutes. Then, I frosted those babies.
Saturday: Smooth the finishes (using a papertowel and warm hand) and transport.
Once I got to the reception hall, I stacked the cakes. Let me tell you...use a metal spatula! I used just my hands on the first layer and left little fingermarks on the cake (d'oh!). Precutting the ribbons by using the cakepans was smart. I used little pearl pushpins to hold the ribbon ends together in the back. Then, the big bow had twisted floral wire in the back to hold it to the cake. In addition, I ended up piping little beads on to the bottom of two of the layers. It was a minute detail that seemed to catch the praise of a lot of friends after wards.
Voila -- 18.75 cups cake flour, 14 cups sugar, 49 sticks of butter, and 57 eggs later...you've got wedding cake!!
The best part -- it tasted really good too! That's just as important as how it looks.
I definitely made more than enough cake though, because I saw 3 boxes stacked on the cake table after wards by the caterer so that the bride and groom to take home the leftovers (one being the 6" topper, of course).
