wedding cake

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Q: wedding cake?
my fiance and I are wanting to make our own cake for our wedding after looking around and seeing the unbelievable prices people charge for a wedding cake.
We are pretty much beginners to cake making so Im asking this in plenty of time to do many trial runs!
If anybody knows how to make a great wedding cake please let me know and any decoration tips and advice. Thanks!
The cake is for around 60 people, I dont mind if its 2 or 3 tier. We really arent picky on the flavourings whether its chocolate, vanilla, fruit or anything else we are open to anything at this stage!

A: I understand you want to do this yourself but with the time you will be spending and the ingredients you may find it is cheaper to hire someone to make it for you.. I did.. Look around for someone that does cakes from their home.. Check the papers for ads.. Or try a super walmart or grocery store and see if they do cakes.. check on the prices that way as well.. I have included several recipes so that you can see the number of ingredients to make the cakes plus you will need to purchase pans and other decorating materials… Good luck..

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Recipe Box
Classic White Cake

6 cups sifted cake flour
2 Tablespoons baking powder
1 1/2 cups butter or margarine
3 cups sugar
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
12 egg whites
Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease bottom of pans and line with waxed paper or parchment paper, or use Wilton Cake Release (Click here for complete instructions on preparing baking pans.). Sift together flour and baking powder. Set aside. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Set aside. Beat egg whites until stiff, but not dry. Set aside.

With a mixer at slow speed, add flour mixture to butter mixture, alternately with milk. Beat well after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract. Gently fold egg whites into batter. Pour into prepared pans. Bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Makes 12 cups batter.
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Butter Cake

This cake has a firm, moist texture that makes it perfect for tiered designs. We’ve added almond flavor to give it a richer taste everyone will love.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups butter, room temperature
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
5 eggs
1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
3/4 teaspoon Premium Almond Flavor
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray pans with vegetable pan spray, or use Wilton Cake Release (Click here for complete instructions on preparing baking pans.) In mixer bowl cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in vanilla and almond flavor. Mix flour with baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture alternately with milk, starting with the flour. Pour into prepared pans. Refer to baking chart, for baking times and temperatures for specific pans. Cool 10 minutes in pan. Loosen sides and remove. Cool completely before decorating.

Makes 7 1/2 cups batter.

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Buttercream Icing

(Medium Consistency)
Ingredients:
1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon Clear Vanilla Extract
4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar (approx. 1 lb.)
2 tablespoons milk
In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use. For best results, keep icing bowl in refrigerator when not in use. Refrigerated in an airtight container, this icing can be stored 2 weeks. Rewhip before using.

YIELD: Makes about 3 cups.

For thin (spreading) consistency icing, add 2 tablespoons light corn syrup, water or milk.

For Pure White Icing (stiff consistency), omit butter; substitute an additional 1/2 cup shortening for butter and 1/2 teaspoon No-Color Butter Flavor. Add up to 4 tablespoons light corn syrup, water or milk to thin for icing cakes.
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Pastry Cream Filling

Rich, yet delicate, ideal for any cake and easy to vary. Fills a 9″ cake.

3 Tablespoons flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 Tablespoons sugar
1 cup half & half or 1/2 cup whipping (heavy) cream plus 1/2 cup whole milk
4 egg yolks
1 teaspoon Wilton Pure Vanilla Extract
Mix the flour, salt and sugar in a saucepan and blend in a little of the cream. Place on medium heat and stir constantly. Add the rest of the cream and continue stirring until the mixture reaches the consistency of medium cream sauce. Stir a little of the sauce into the egg yolks, then pour egg yolks into the sauce in pan. Cook for a few minutes on low heat until thickened. Remove from heat, add vanilla and cool quickly. To prevent a skin from forming, brush with melted butter. Stir a little before using.

Yield: 1 1/3 cups

Q: Wedding cake?
Anyone have any recipes for wedding cake or any great ideas? My wedding is next week would like some advise. Thanks

A: for my wedding cake i had cheesecake in the inside and outside just the normal buttercream and it was awesome!!

i had my cake look like a present.. bottom layer was a rectangular shaped with one circle ontop of another circle adn then had ribbon (real) tied up like it was a big package. it turned out sooo cute. we got married a week before Christmas too and it looked like a big Christmas present. good luck and congrats.!!

Q: Wedding Cake?
I’m planning a summer wedding with many vibrant summer colours like yellow, dark pink, light pink and purple.

Both me and my fiance are not huge fans of cake, but we both love strawberry shortcake (like the fluffy angel cake, strawberries and whip cream).

Any suggestions for how to decorate a cake like that? More than likely I’ll be the one making it. I have in mind a three tier white, maybe pink wedding cake with either a vast assortment of fruit or flowers to decorate it with. Any ideas?

A: DO NOT make your own wedding cake. As the bride you have plenty to do without adding your cake to the list. Trust me honey, I’ve seen it done and it always turns out a disaster. Instead, enlist the help of family or a friend to make the cake for you.

Since it’s strawberry shortcake what if you set up an interactive bar where guests were given their individual cakes then could load up on their choice of berries, whipped cream, or sauces. Besides strawberries you could offer blueberries, blackberries, raspberry, etc.

Otherwise you could easily do angel food cake layered and iced with the whipped cream just like if you had buttercream with fresh fruit as your decor. On each table you can put a gravy boat with strawberry sauce or even chocolate for guests who want some extra flavoring.

It doesn’t even have to be cake. Pies, cheesecake, icecream sundae bar, brownies, a large stack of cookies. I even saw a wedding where they put individual servings if tiramisu in martini glasses and made a tower….it looked really awesome.

Q: Why save the wedding cake and serve the sheet cake?
I guess Im a little confused. I am planning my wedding and I am learning that people usually have their wedding cake out for all to see, but they don’t actually serve that cake. They have a sheet cake in the back that gets sliced up and served. I understand the sheet cake is cheaper, but why save the WHOLE wedding cake?

A: People don’t save the whole wedding cake. They save the top tier to be eaten on the couples one year anniversary.

Sometime you can’t afford a cake and people will use a model that isn’t real and serve sheet cake. Sometimes only a section of the cake it real for the cake cutting and pictures.

The couple may have a small wedding cake that will just be served to the bridal party and parents, and the sheet cakes for the rest of the guests. Cost efficiency is a major thing when planning a wedding. This also keep the guests from complaining about who gets what cake, because usually the caterer takes the wedding cake to the back to cut up for guests serving.

I have never heard of a bride saving the entire wedding cake though. Check your sources, I think you might be slightly misinformed.

Our wedding, we have a four tiered wedding cake plus two sheets cakes. All but the top tier will be served at the wedding. We are being a little fun with our sheet cakes. We are actually doing cheesecake, so we are doing a build your own cheesecake dessert table. It will have toppings for everyone to choose from so they don’t have to eat the flavors of wedding cake we picked. Our tiered cake is also cheesecake and are chocolate and almond flavor, and not everybody likes flavored cheesecake. This gives people a chance to have more variety and it is fun and different than other weddings.
Good luck with your wedding

Q: What is the difference between Wedding and Birthday cake?
clarification: talking about the actual cake, not the decorations or layout. Supposedly wedding cake always tastes better than a birthday cake.

Are there different ingredients in a wedding cake? I’ve known people to only buy expensive birthday cakes from wedding cake bakers.

Just curious if there is a difference in the mix or the baking process.

A: Know Your Ingredients
Wedding CAKE

The main ingredients of shortened cakes are fat, sugar, eggs and flour. Some recipes also call for chemical leaveners (baking powder or baking soda), milk, buttermilk or sour cream, flavoring extracts, and a pinch of salt to heighten the flavors.

A feature that characterizes shortened cakes–also known as “high-ratio cakes”–is their high proportion of fat and sugar to flour. These ingredients are what make cakes tender, moist and dense. Since there are so few ingredients in these cakes, use high-quality butter and pure flavoring extracts, measure with perfect accuracy and follow the recipe directions to achieve the best results.

Butter is usually the fat of choice, or a combination of butter and shortening. Shortening is easier to work with, because it is already partially aerated and remains at the same texture over a wide temperature range, but butter gives incomparable flavor and mouth-feel

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The Mixing Method

The “creaming method” is the same mixing technique you use for a batch of chocolate chip cookies–for cakes, however, you keep beating air into the mix. Over-mixing, which would cause the cookies to spread flat when baking, is hard to do when creaming butter and sugar for a cake. Beat room-temperature butter with granulated sugar (superfine, castor, or “bakers’ sugar” is best) until the butter is very fluffy and noticeably lighter in color.

Add room temperature eggs one by one, beating after each addition. Adding all of the eggs or too much cold liquid at once will cause the batter to look curdled. Add any extracts or flavorings after incorporating the eggs.

Once you start adding dry ingredients, be careful not to over-beat the batter. The gentle handling is critical to creating a fine, not tough, texture in a cake. Many recipes alternate adding dry ingredients and any additional liquid; mix well after each addition, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Stop mixing when each addition is well incorporated

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Before You Begin

Make sure that all of your ingredients are at room temperature, particularly the fat, eggs and any liquid you may be using. It’s essential that all these items be at room temperature:

If the butter is too cold, it won’t beat evenly; it won’t incorporate air and increase in volume.
When eggs and liquid are cold, the batter will curdle. Instead of a smooth, homogenous batter, it will separate into liquid and fat. You can still proceed with the recipe, but the cake’s texture may be denser than you like.
If any of the ingredients are warm, the fat will melt and you won’t be able to whip air into the mixture.
The second thing you need to do before mixing the batter is to thoroughly sift together all the dry ingredients. Cake flour and cocoa powder are especially fine, and form small lumps that won’t get broken up during the mixing process. Unevenly mixed ingredients can result in a cake with big holes and tunnels through the middle, riddled with lumps of raw flour. Use a sifter or a wire whisk to make sure all lumps are broken up and those ingredients are really and truly mixed together.

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More Cake Tips

You don’t have to have a stand mixer to make a butter cake or pound cake, but it sure helps. Begin by beating the softened butter at medium speed until fluffy and light in color, about three minutes. Add the sugar and continue to beat for about four minutes longer. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs one at a time and beat for several seconds between each addition. If the batter does curdle, just continue whipping it; it should smooth out once it warms up.

After you’ve beaten in the eggs, you must mix in the remaining ingredients as gently and quickly as possible to avoid deflating the air you’ve so carefully beaten into the mixture.

Slow the mixer down to low speed and sprinkle in about 1/3 of the dry ingredients.
Mix the batter while pouring in about 1/3 of the liquid (this includes milk, buttermilk, sour cream, juice, or coffee).
Continue in this fashion until all of the ingredients are incorporated into a smooth batter.
Any garnishes–nuts, fruit, chocolate chips or other additions–should be very gently folded in by hand after the batter is mixed.

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Baking Cakes

Pour the batter immediately into a prepared baking pan–either greased and floured, or greased and lined with parchment paper–and bake in the preheated oven. As the cake bakes, it will rise high in the middle and turn a dark golden brown on the outside. Depending upon your oven, you may need to rotate the cake pans on their racks to ensure even baking.

Don’t wait until the cake has pulled away from the sides of the pan to test for doneness: test it by pressing gently with a fingertip near the center. The cake should slowly spring back. (You can also insert a toothpick or cake tester near the center of the cake; it should come out clean, with no batter sticking to it.) Once you remove the cake from the oven, let it cool on a wire rack. Run a knife around the edges of the cake pan to loosen the cake, and invert the pan onto another rack or plate. Cool completely before slicing or frosting.

BIrthday CAKE
INGREDIENTS
2 cups white sugar
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
3 egg yolks
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup boiling water

DIRECTIONS
Mix together the buttermilk with the baking soda. Set aside. Cream shortening, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Beat well.
Add buttermilk and baking soda mixture.
Sift dry ingredients, and add to creamed mixture.
Add boiling water, and mix well.
Pour into a greased and floured 9 x 13 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for approximately 35 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
Let cool. I frost with cream cheese frosting.

Q: Is there a difference in ingredients for a wedding cake versus a regular cake?
I know that wedding cakes are made in advance, usually a few days to a week, of the wedding day. I’m wondering if there is something unique about a wedding cake recipe that differs from a typical cake recipe so that the cake stays moist for so long. We’re looking for a great chocolate wedding cake recipe if anyone as any! THANKS!

A: Nothing different about the cake itself just the decorations and the size of course.

Q: I want a cake recipe for a wedding cake, that is light and fluffy.?
I am getting married in July. It is going to be an outdoor wedding and reception. I want a light and fluffy wedding cake recipe. I have tried a few wedding cakes recipes, and they are very heavy. I am having a tiered cake, but I will be using support. I will be decorating it with MM fondant as well. Anyone know of a light fluffy tasty cake recipe, please send it along. Thanks.
I think I should add more. I tried a white chocolate cake. It was delicious before it was cooked, then it was soooo heavy that I could feel it for two days in my stomach and still taste it in my mouth. I am not fond of cake, but I want a cake recipe that will hold up being 3 tiers with fondant, but that is tasty enough and not soooo heavy that people will eat it and not just throw it away.

HELP! I am proficient in decorating and I know that I can decorate this cake without issue. I have even started to practise using fondant, so that I can work with it easily. I found a great fondant recipe that is made with marshmellow.

I don’t want a fruit flavoured cake. So no orange, lemon, coconut. I don’t mind a coloured cake, so chocolate is fine.

A: Maybe you should try a pound or sponge cake made with sour cream?

It’s hard to do light and fluffy when tiered, and to support fondant.

Or, you could always have a ‘fake cake’ decorated with fondant for looks and cut pieces of your favorite dessert/cake to serve. Good luck…

Q: How soon to do destination wedding cake tasting?
My Fiance and I are planning a wedding 600 miles from where we currently live. We will be going there next month, is that too soon to do cake tastings for a wedding that will take place Spring 2011? If we went a month before the wedding, would that be too short notice to have a cake made for us? And if anyone knows of a good bakery in San Diego, I would appreciate suggestions!

A: I would start sampling now?

Q: What is the reason behind the wedding cake in a western wedding?
In a western style wedding, the couple is usually asked to cut the wedding cake. What’s the meaning behind the wedding cake?

A: A wedding cake is the traditional cake served to the guests at a wedding breakfast, after a wedding. It is usually a large cake, multi-layered or tiered, and heavily decorated with icing, occasionally over a layer of marzipan or fondant, topped with a small statue of a bride and groom. Other common motifs include doves, gold rings and horseshoes, the latter symbolising good luck. Achieving a dense, strong cake that can support the decorations while remaining edible can be considered the epitome of the baker’s art and skill.

Tradition generally requires that the first cut of the cake be performed by bride and groom together, often with a ceremonial knife, or even a sword. An older, archaic tradition had the bride serve all portions to the groom’s family, as a symbolic transfer of her household labor from her family to the groom’s family.

Tradition may also dictate that the bride and groom feed the first bites of this cake to each other. Again, this may symbolize the new family unit formed and the replacement of the old parent-child union. It is also fairly popular for the bride and groom to shove the cake in each other’s faces, rather than eating it.

Other guests may then partake of the cake, portions may be taken home or shipped to people who missed the festivities. (An old tradition held that if a bridesmaid slept with a piece of wedding cake beneath her pillow she might dream of her future husband.)

A portion may be stored, and eaten by the couple at their first wedding anniversary, or at the christening of their first child- The cake may be frozen for this purpose, formerly the top tier of the cake might consist of fruitcake which could be stored for a great length of time.

The origins of the tradition of the wedding cake date back to medieval times, when each guest at a wedding was supposed to bring a small cake, the cakes would be stacked on the table in levels and layers (If the bride and groom were able to kiss over the top of the stack it was considered good luck, if they fell in “Hey, dinner and a show!”) these cake stacks would eventually merge into one cake and evolve into the modern wedding cake. Sweets are traditional at many celebrations for most if not all cultures worldwide. Ancient Roman records detail sweets distributed at weddings. The book Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain details the ancient Roman practice of dropping a wedding cake on the head of the bride. Medieval and Renaissance resources also mention large cakes at weddings. Such cakes may have been fruitcake.

A large cake can take a long time to make, and without modern refrigeration, a heavy fat and sugar frosting may have prevented spoilage by limiting moisture exposure. Another possibility is the use of sugar and fat required satisfying the need for conspicuous consumption for the families involved in the wedding.

The tiered design of the wedding cake originates from the tiered spire of a well known medieval church in London, England, called St Bride’s.

Henry VIII of England enacted a law specifying the quantity of sugar a cake may have, possibly to control or tax this prevailing convention.

During World War II, sugar was rationed in Great Britain, so icing could not be made, and cakes were reduced in size. To overcome this cakes were often served inside a box, which had been decorated with plaster of Paris, to resemble a larger, traditional cake.

Q: What’s your favorite wedding cake flavor? Do you prefer cakes with many options or just one?
My fiancé and I love strawberry filled wedding cakes. Yummy. I personally like having different flavored layers as some people don’t like strawberry… I’ve thought of chocolate which the groom’s cake is traditionally but he’d prefer a different flavor (although it’s a surprise). I was curious what other people like.

Congratulations and best of luck in planning and in your marriages.

Thanks for the answers.

A: Yum! Strawberry!
We are having 5 different flavors in our cake. Each tier is separate. It was quite the battle to narrow it down. Thank goodness for our parents helping out! We’re having a winter wedding, so we wanted richer flavors. Congrats and good luck!!!

Irish Wedding: A Devil’s Food cake combined with our rich Bailey’s Irish Créme filling

Tuxedo cake

Banana Creme

Cream Cheese Nirvana

Brownie Cake

Q: What are some good ideas for a wedding cake?
Ok my fiance and I are planning our wedding. We hope to have our wedding next to a river in Alabama. Our colors are Chocolate and turquoise blue. What would be some ideas for the wedding cake? I want to keep it traditional but in the same way kidda incorporate our theme into the cake. Just nothing over the top. You know?

A: I like both of these cake pictures – they incorporate your colors nicely:

Like this:

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dbrown%2Band%2Bblue%2Bwedding%2Bcake%26ei%3DUTF-8%26fr%3Dyfp-t-701%26fr2%3Dtab-web&w=400&h=600&imgurl=www.charlottegeary.com%2Fimages%2Fweddingideas%2Fcakes%2Fwedding-cakes-012.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.charlottegeary.com%2Fweddingideas%2Fideas-for-wedding-cakes.html&size=93k&name=wedding+cakes+01…&p=brown+and+blue+wedding+cake&oid=31a1f4b564042fce&fr2=tab-web&no=1&tt=893&sigr=1272ep4e5&sigi=12693shva&sigb=13c69sl9b

Or this:

Q: How much cake should I order for my wedding?
I read somewhere that when ordering your wedding cake you don’t order enough cake for every guest just a percentage, whats that percentage?

We’re having 80 people.

A: With that small of a number for the guest list, I’d go with 100%. Most people that have 50-85 people at their wedding invite only family and very close friends, most of which (probably all) will actually show up. I’m inviting 250 people and my cake serves 231 including the top tier (220 if I save the top for my anni). I know that 100% of my invited guests aren’t going to show up though. I’ll probably end up having cake out the wazoo, but oh well. I’d rather be overly safe than sorry.

*ADD* It sounds like I meant no one is going to show up at my wedding…lol. I meant to say that I know that not all of the people invited are going to actually show up.

Q: Wedding cake recipes for frosting and tips on decoration?
i have to make my first wedding cake in a couple weeks and really am starting to panic and second guess myself, if you guys could give me some tips for the frosting or for the decorations (simple please) i would really appreciate it!

A: Here is a great site with thousands of ideas and lots of people to ask for help plus loads and loads of pictures.

http://cakecentral.com

Q: How do you make wedding cake steps?
I am making a Patio and I am planning to make wedding cake steps for my entry from the house to patio. My door is 30″ wide and 24″ above the ground (excluding 4″ gravel).

Please advise ASAP

A: This really is not an ASAP type of question.
If you are talking about concrete (an I will assume you are for this answer) there is a lot of difficult forming involved. you have to also build a pad base that will be under the stairs unless you want to make them solid concrete. you will need lots of stakes and you will need to take them out at the right time to fill the holes but not deform the steps.
Steps are pretty complex I really would not recommend this for a diy’er.
I will give you a brief over view because I doubt anyone on this site is going to know what wedding cake steps are.
1.you will need a footing 24″ isn’t very high but a footing is always a must.
2. You will need to lay out the steps and figure what rise and run you will be most comfortable with (and what is code in your area)
3. you will need to form the steps with bender board attached to stakes that are well placed in the ground.
4.after the forms are up you will need to fill the area so it will not be solid concrete.
5.after the fill is in you will need to place reinforcement strips from form to form to restrict movement and prevent blow out.
6. after the concrete is just right you will need to strip the forms, remove the stakes and fill the holes in the steps.
7.while the steps are still damp but hard you will need to “face” them or you can do this the next day. if you do it the same day the color will be better.
Remember this is just an over view. Oh and if you meant wood disregard all of the above….

Q: How do people enjoy wedding cake if fondant doesn’t taste good?
I’ve been told fondant is incredibly sweet just tastes like sugar. So how do people eat wedding cake?

A: Most people don’t eat it. There’s some superstition about putting the wrapped cake under your pillow and sleeping on it.

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