Cake, Cake And More Cake

Icing the three layer cake for the base of the tiered wedding cake.

Cakes ready to be iced. Every layer was soaked with a Grand Marnier simple syrup. In between the layers is fresh strawberry puree and strawberry buttercream.

Yesterday was cake day. I made and baked 15 cakes from scratch for the wedding cake I'm making for my friend Nathan's wedding reception tomorrow.

The first cake came out of the oven at 7 a.m. and the last at 10 p.m. and along the way I learned I need more cake pans.

I have only one pan for the largest sized cake and I needed to make nine of them since the base of the tiered cake is three layers and I'm making three additional two layer cakes to help feed the large crowd that is expected. Each cake took 45 minutes to bake and 15 minutes to cool in the pan before I could get another in the oven.

Half of the cakes I made yesterday.

I also made eight batches of buttercream. Luckily I have an easy vanilla cream buttercream recipe that is great when you need to make a lot of batches because you can make the base for the buttercream in advance.


Here's the recipe:

Vanilla Cream Buttercream
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar, divided
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla
2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature


In a saucepan over medium heat, cook the milk and half of the sugar until simmering.
In the meantime, in a small bowl combine the cream, the other half of the sugar and cornstarch. Mix well with a whisk.

When the milk is simmering,  pour about half of it into the cream mixture and whisk well. Add it back to the milk in the saucepan and heat, stirring constantly until the mixture becomes very thick.

Remove from heat and whisk in the vanilla. Put the mixture into a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let the mixture cool completely.

This buttercream base can be made in advance. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it cool completely before adding the butter.

When the buttercream base is cool, transfer it to a mixer and whip until smooth, add the butter a tablespoon at a time and whip until light and fluffy.

Wedding Week

I'm making a wedding cake for a reception this coming Saturday so this week has been busy busy busy.

Making a wedding cake means more than just baking a cake and adding frosting. Presentation matters a lot and it takes time and careful consideration.

Without giving away too much about the design (I want Nathan to be surprised), here are a few snapshots of what I've been up to so far this week.

Monday: Making the cake decorations. Here, I'm getting ready to cut blue birds out of tinted sugar cookie dough.

Tuesday: Shopping for cake ingredients. This was what my cart looked like even before I hit the butter department.

Tuesday Night: Adding muslin fabric and ribbon to 16-inch wooden rounds that will act as cake bases. I'm making a four-tiered wedding cake and three additional two layer 14-inch cakes so I had to make four cake bases.

Wednesday: Making the fresh strawberry filling for the cake.

Wedding Cake Preparations

Making a wedding cake means a trip to the hardware store.

Cutting rounds of foam core the size of the cake tiers.

I'm in the process of getting my supplies together for a wedding cake that I am making for a reception on April 6.

There will be upwards of 300 guests so my plan is to make a traditional four-tiered wedding cake and three additional large 14-inch two layer cakes.

Some of the things I did to prepare this past week included a trip to the hardware store for wood rounds which I'll turn into pretty cake bases with fabric and ribbon.

And, I bought 1/4-inch wood dowels which I'll use as supports for the cake layers. After the cake is assembled, I'll sharpen the end of a dowel the height of the entire cake and insert it down the center to stabilize every tier.

My preparations also included the cutting of a giant piece of foam core into rounds the size of each of the cake tiers. Each cake layer will be on foam core because it's a material the dowel will go through yet stay strong.

There's a lot to do and a lot to think about since the wedding is fast approaching and in the last few days I want to be able to just focus on baking a delicious cake.