My Return! With a wedding cake!

I've been gone for sooooo long! I missed you all so much that I had to come back :)
I have such a love for baking and love for writing that blogging is my only option, I guess!

Getting right down to business! Cakes!!

A good friend of mine asked me to do her wedding cake a loooong time ago and of course I agreed so I put it on the calendar!

I had the tasting in July. Usually, indecisive people drive me crazy! Do you know how many consultations I have when the person(s) ordering the cake says, "well, just do what you think is best"?? Are you kidding me?! All due respect but this makes me want to high five your face. I love flexibility, but I'm going to need some guidelines here! Heaven forbid I decide that Dragonflies are an awesome addition to your cake and you happen to be deathly afraid of Dragonflies! You're not smashing MY masterpiece with a flyswatter!!

Anywho, she happened to like a very simple design (lucky me) and very simple flavors ( lucky me again). She did the one thing that I love when my customers do. She showed me a picture of the cake she liked. I googled it, printed it and sketched my own version.

This was my first stacked, fondant covered cake so I had to be well prepared so I didn't work myself to death. That was my theory anyway. Prepare for everything. I was still stressed out and ended up being so drained that I couldn't make myself attend the actual wedding. :( Sorry Brandy): , but I think that I just need to manage my stress better. Oh, and not make myself do so many other things in the same time frame. That might help too. Did I mention that my younger daughter was playing in a soccer tournament that weekend and happened to have a double- header the day the cake was due?! So that happened.

All in all, I felt pretty good about how this cake was going to turn out. I had sketched everything about 5 times, written out and checked off  20 or so lists of ingredients I would need, fondant, cake pans, cake plates and any miscellaneous products I might need. I buffed up on YouTube videos on the best way to do what I was doing and how to fix whatever problems I might face. I was finally ready. Bring it on, baby!

Everything's baked, filled and taking over my dining room table. I needed to let the cakes settle so I didn't get air bubbles under my fondant. So here they sat, weighted, for at least 1/2 hour.

Snacks!

No need to check the knife for sharpness at all. Already did that. I wouldn't recommend that method either! OUCH!

 After I covered each tier, I had to stack them so I knew how everything would fit together. I wasn't going to put a stacked 4 tier cake in my husband's truck to transport. He would never forgive me if I got chocolate cake all over his cream colored interior! Although he'd probably end up giving me the truck and buying himself a new car!

 

This is about the point that I realized that the (sheer) purple ribbon she gave me to put at the base of each tier, was NOT going to hide the cake plates and boards that you can see in this picture. Just to be clear, at this point it's about 10pm the night before the wedding. I have a soccer game in the morning before I deliver this cake. I ultimately decided that I would make fondant strips the size of the ribbon to cover the base of each tier first, then lay the purple ribbon on top of it.

 I also remembered that I had this white cake base in my garage from the first wedding I ever did and it would be perfect for this wedding. Especially since the one that she'd chosen had been about 4 inches too small. Poor Brandy, She wanted to throw stuff when I told her. I told her to just let me deal with the rest of the cake stuff. Base, decorations, all that. Hope that took a little stress off!

I stacked to first two tiers and decorated. That was as high as I was willing to travel with. I would stack and decorate the other two at the venue.

I found some ivory organza (left over from my wedding) that matched perfect with the cake!

Finally, the finished product!

In the end, Brandy Love, Love, Loved her cake as I did I! I was so proud of myself because it turned out better than I imagined it would!

Thanks so much to Brandy Patton for letting me create her wedding cake and thanks to everyone for reading!

Next will be my Nephew's Fire Engine birthday cake!! Yay me!