Baked, Filled And Frosted

The 10-inch tier chilling.

I began baking the cakes for my friend Jeff's wedding at 10 a.m. this morning and by 8 p.m. this evening, all of the tiers were filled, frosted and being chilled.

It was a long day but also fun for me since I haven't baked a cake for months due to my kitchen remodeling project. My sister who lives close by,  loaned me her kitchen for the day and even cleared out her whole refrigerator so that I wouldn't have to move the cakes until the day of the wedding.

My nephew Sam and my niece Maya were so helpful to me,  showing me where things were in the kitchen and even helping me clean up.

Now that the majority of the work is done, it's nice to be able to relax a bit until Saturday when I need to transport and stack the tiers at the venue. Oh, I'll also need to add the fresh flowers for decoration.

After baking the pumpkin flavored cakes, I leveled them and placed them on foam core rounds that I cut to the size of my cake pans. I use foam core because after the tiers are stacked I like to put a dowel down through the center of the entire wedding cake for stability. A dowel sharpened in a pencil sharpener easily goes through the foam core.

The bottom layer of the tiers got a coating of dark chocolate ganache.

After adding the second layer to the tiers, I let the cakes chill well before frosting.

I made a simple cream cheese frosting and used the back of a teaspoon to add swirls for texture. I like the natural look of this frosting technique and think it will look soft and elegant with the addition of fresh flowers for decoration.