Your daughter, son, cousin, best friend is getting married and you've asked or want to make the cake. It's a wonderful honour to make someone's wedding cake but it can be a stressful thing to do if you've never done it before. Below I've outline some tips and tricks to make it easier and some things you'll need to consider before making the cake.
There's aren't decorating tips -you'll find those in other posts these are questions to ask yourself or things to consider for delivery.
Are you in the bridal party?
If you're the mother of the bride/groom, a bridesmaid, best man, you need to ask yourself do you honestly have time to make the cake? There's a lot of little jobs to be done the day before/morning of the wedding do you really have time to decorate a cake?
Enter your time saving friend - Cake Dummy! These can be decorated a few days beforehand and honestly no one will be able to tell the difference.
I hear you, you still want cake, make a cake in either a traybake sheet cake or regular 8"/10" cake tin and send straight into the kitchen, once cut no one will know. These are much easier to bake, you don't need to worry about decorating, as a simple finish is enough. I also recommend doing this if you have a cake recipe that's say a 6" cake but you want an 8" cake, don't stress about buying new cake tins or changing the recipe. Simply make it like always(less chance of anything going wrong) and maybe make two instead of one so you've enough cake.
Need to travel a few hours away?
Again I'm going to recommend cake dummy! No worrying about how to travel with a cake or allowing space in the car.
You want one tier to be cake.
Easily done, do one real tier of cake and the others can be dummy cakes. This trick also works if you only need a small cake but want the look of a three or four tier cake.
Confirm delivery with the hotel!
This is an important step a few days before ring or email the hotel and confirm what time can you drop the cake off. Do this with someone from the function team not just someone at reception. This is important for a few reasons, you need to arrive when the table that the cake will be going on is set up or if the cake need to be stored in the fridge then you need to give the venue time to make the space or at least the heads up that they need to have space available for you.
Cake Storage -Put it in Writing.
Firstly where possible I don't recommend leaving the cake in the hotel overnight, it's best if you can set it up yourself but if you do have to store the cake under certain conditions be it in the fridge, out of the fridge write it ON THR BOX, clearly for anyone to read it and also include your phone number in case someone needs to call you. The person that you give the cake to might give it to someone else and messages can be lost between people, if it's clearly written on the box how it should be stored there will be no confusion.
Stacking a Cake
Dowels are a must when stacking a two or more tiered wedding cake the only exception is if making a chocolate biscuit cake as that's solid and won't need a dowel. Make sure there is a cake board under each cake and use something to stick each cake tier together either chocolate ganache or royal icing work best. Allow time between stacking and transporting the cake. Important to note not all cakes are suitable for stacking something like a light carrot cake or sponge cake shouldn't be stacked. A display of cakes on different height cake stands can look really nice and takes the pressure off stacking if you've never done it before.
Cake Design
You can do a little or you can do a lot, remember with a simple cake design there is less for you to add to cover up any imperfections that might be on the cake. Icing isn't completely smooth in one part that's where I'd put a flower or fondant decoration. If you want to add flowers but worried about sticking them into the cake or it's a chocolate biscuit cake where you won't get flowers into the cake, why not decorate around the cake either at the base of the cake stand or around the table with little vases of flowers.
Making a cake yourself just to save money?
I get it weddings are expensive and wedding cakes can cost a couple of hundred euros but making it yourself won't be any cheaper if you don't have the tools needed to make a cake. Do you have cake tins? Cake tools like a palette knife, turntable, side scraper? Ingredients all add up and remember three tier cake will need a lot of eggs and butter.
Making someone's wedding cake is a great thing to do and for a baker it's a great way to push yourself and learn how to do something new but I also say at the end of the day it's butter, sugar and flour don't lose sleep or stress over it! There are plenty of ways to do it that'll end up in a beautiful cake. Plan ahead, get prepared and things will run smoothly.
Quick Question Round Up:
-Do you have time to make the cake?
-Do you have the space to make the cake at home?
-Do you have the equipment to make the cake?
-Are you available to delivery the cake to the venue?
-Is there room in the car?
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