Ever made a wedding cake?

[corazon]

My sister got engaged a couple nights ago! I told her I'd make her wedding cake if she wanted. She'll be getting married in about a year and I plan on doing many test cakes. You will all probably see the stages of this cake. Any advice you could give me would be great. Thanks!

 

[corazon]

I'm also looking for a good wedding cake book, if you know of any.

 

[Chef_Jimmy]

Here is a recipe I have for basic wedding cake, the amounts can be doubled, tripled or whatever and you can experiment with shapes and icing:


Shortening-2/3 cup
Butter, softened-2/3 cup
Granulated Sugar-3 ½ cups
Pastry Flour-6 cups
Baking Powder-2 ½ Tbls.
Salt-1 ½ tsp.
Vanilla Extract-1 Tbls.
Eggs Whites- 1 1/3 cups
Milk-2 2/3 cups

Cream shortening, butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the creamed mixture alternately with the milk. Stir in Vanilla. Bet egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter. Pour into prepared cake pan (size and shape depend on the shape you want) Bake in a 350* oven.

Makes 6 cups of batter

 

[corazon]

Thanks chef jimmy!

 

[Chef_Jimmy]

no prob, like i said, this is a basic recipe i got in culinary school. The texture and flavor is excellent, light and fluffy, baking is not my calling, but if you are creative than you got it going on. It is great that you have a year to practice, I would suggest making a regular layered cake to see if you like the recipe and then go crazy with shapes and stacks and such. Rolled fondant is a great topping (okay, i can;t explain it well but it can be colored and shaped) search for it or i have a recipe, but i just can't really say what it is in words you know what i mean? Good luck

 

[jpmcgrew]

Corazon I have made a few wedding cakes.I actually went to Chicago a couple of years ago and took the Wilton Master Course on cake decorating it was a 10 day crash course I learned alot.
You could start by checking out the wedding cakes recipes,how to put a big cake together,transporting etc.Also baking 911 is a good site.
Wilton uses cake mixes but you could make your own scratch cake layers.http://wilton.com

http://www.baking911.com/

 

[corazon]

thanks jpmcgrew! That is helpful, now I know who to go for with all my wedding cake questions. I think she'll be getting married in Taos. I tried to karmalize you but I must spread.

 

[Shunka]

The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum is also very helpful for this.

 

[philso]

pound cake makes a nice wedding cake. the good points include:

- if you're doing this in your home kitchen, and you've got between 100 - 200 guests, it's gonna take quite a while. pound cake stores very nicely.

- if you've got the equipment, you can whip up the batter all in one big batch.

- candied fruits and nuts symbolize a (excuse me here) "fruitful" marriage, i.e. kids and plenty

- hit it with some brandy and wrap it up for a few days (or more). very nice

- except for decorating it, you can be done days or even weeks in advance.
you don't want to have any last minute failures or "episodes", especially as your sister will be around pretty much the rest of your life to remind you

- you'll be busy enough doing other stuff at the last minute

- stores really well. if you make another small layer, soak it with brandy, pack it with powdered sugar, wrap well in both plastic and aluminum foil, and then put it in the freezer, the happy couple can have a small slice for many an anniversary to come

i made a 5 tier cake for my sister-in-law. she loved it

 

[JoyC]

The first cookbook Martha Stewart put out Entertaining had a few wedding cakes in it pretty and nicely decorated not too fancy my daughters each picked one as the cake when they got married and the bakers didn't follow the recipe she gave but rather the shape and decoration both were marvelous looking
How many people will you be serving - will the cake have to be huge and elaborate
Joyce

 

[corazon]

She's thinking about 100 people. I need to talk to her about what she'd like. She'll be visiting in a couple weeks and we will go through most of the details then.

 

[PA Baker]

I'd agree that the Wilton wedding cake book and the Cake Bible are both good resources. Wilton puts out new books every year so you can get a huge variety of styles.

There's also a good thread that was started a long time ago on wedding cakes. I'll try to find it for you and bump it up.

If you need to order materials and such, www.kitchengifts.com is where I used to order all of my decorating supplies. (ahhh, the good old days! )

You're such a nice sister!!!

 

[Ishbel]

British wedding cakes are traditionally a rich fruit cake, marzipaned and with a fine icing and decorations. Traditionally, the top layer is preserved to be served at the christening of the first child of the marriage!