December Wedding Cake

In December I was asked to make a wedding cake with a gingerbread filling to go with the season. This was my first gingerbread filling, and I was excited for the new challenge. I did some research, and found this recipe from Martha Stewart that I used as my base. 

Spice mixture: ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, cloves, and salt.

Making the simple syrup for the buttercream with brown sugar for that molasses flavor that gives gingerbread its deep flavor.

I did a small test round and found that the flavor wasn't overly strong, and I knew it needed to pack a punch to stand up to the cake and regular buttercream frosting. I upped the nutmeg and the ginger, being careful to keep a balance without overwhelming and the final product had great gingerbread flavor that had a somewhat eggnog-like finish. I was pleased, as that was still in the "holiday" realm we were going for. 

It was your standard cake, but they didn't have a cake topper, which has me thinking that for people who don't have a cake topper, I could make a 3-inch tier that could also serve as their tier for their 1st anniversary. But that will come with the next cake. I keep learning something every time I make one. And my goal for this year is to make 6, so help spread the word!

I took pictures of all of the steps, but totally forgot to take a picture of the finished product. Below are all the "prep steps" as I often share pictures of the cake and frosting making, but never the other parts that go into making the cake. I often get asked how much time it takes to make a cake, and I've got it down to about 24 hours total. Some of that is "inactive" time while waiting for the cakes to bake, but most of it is in the kitchen, stirring, measuring, watching, and frosting. And getting pans ready.

Cake boards and cake boxes make the moving, freezing, assembling, and transporting so much easier. I don't think I could do a cake without a board.

Prepping pans: start with clean dry pans.

Then butter, and flour. I always use the same cake flour that I bake with.

Finally, line with parchment paper. I think they sell pre-cut parchment rounds, but I just cut my own every time.

Butter, butter, butter. A 3-tier wedding cake uses 5.25 pounds of butter, and that doesn't include the filling.

Wible-Storey Wedding Cake

Approximately a year ago as I was making my own wedding cake, my friend Heather came to help me out a few days early with all those fun little wedding details that need to be done. And the whole time she talked about this great guy, Evan, and I knew something was definitely happening there. So, here we are, a year later, and I was honored to go to Cleveland to make their wedding cake.

There were a few challenges with this one that were new, and there were a few moments when I was terrified that it wasn't going to work out. But I showed that cake who was boss.

First, I mailed all of my baking supplies to Heather's house in Cleveland so they'd be waiting for me when I arrived. She was kind enough to buy me all the ingredients I'd need to make cake for 150 people, which included 5 dozen eggs and 8 pounds of butter. (People kept walking through the kitchen, marveling at the amount of butter that was on the counter. In the end, I only had a stick and a half left.) Heather was kind enough to pull every bowl, measuring cup, spoon, and spatula she had for my use. Her wonderful gas oven was at my disposal, and once I had some extra coffee in me, I got to working.

I started with a lemon curd and a raspberry filling for their cake. I'd never done either of these before, but they came out well, or so I felt on that Wednesday afternoon. I then went to buttercream mode, and made 4 batches of the buttercream, equalling about 25 cups of buttercream. That was a lovely sight to behold.

I can't ever pass up the chance to take a picture of beautiful buttercream.

Around 5 or 6 pm on Wednesday before the Saturday wedding, I started on the cake itself. My first batch did not look like it was supposed to, and the fact that I was in a strange kitchen, had been up since 5 am, and had flown on a plane started to get to me. My first worries about this cake cropped up, but I realized my butter was over soft from the too-warm kitchen, so I stuck everything in the fridge to keep it from all out melting. I made one more round of cake and called it quits for the night.

The next day, I got to it and finished making cake for the display cake and made a rectangular cake to serve when the display cake ran out. I started to assemble and my first group of cake with filling slid everywhere. I immediately stuck it in the freezer (allowed) and told Heather that I apologized in advance for the fact that I was anxious about her cake and wasn't sure it was going to work out. The other tiers slid a little as well, and I'm not sure if it's because the cake was incredibly fresh (usually I've made it two weeks in advance and kept it in the freezer), the filling was too soft, or what, but by Thursday evening, I was very worried. I held off on frosting for Friday and would do assembly on Saturday before the 2pm wedding.


On Friday, I moved the whole thing to the wedding site, which was in a lovely house where the family was incredibly kind and let me get buttercream all over their kitchen. (I did clean it up). They also let me take over an extra fridge in their garage to store the cake, and after Friday's frosting, I started to feel much better about how things were going to come out. Heather and I planned to do sugared raspberries and lemons as decoration, and two of the bridesmaids, Chiara and Allison (thanks, ladies!), helped me out with that on Saturday.

Come Saturday, I assembled, thankful that the cake had sorted itself out and stayed upright. The cold helped it. I decorated it, enjoyed a lovely wedding and, then served it up. I've never actually cut a cake to serve before, and it was a little sad to tear apart my creation. But it was worth every bite.

And thanks to Jennifer Van Elk for these fantastic photos of the cake and Heather and Evan enjoying it! Congrats Heather and Evan!