So here's the Tale of the Cake, as promised.
Friday, the day before the shower. Weather was cold and miserable with rain dumping down hard. I had a meeting for the NASA project that morning, which went long. Afterwards, I headed over to my moms.
Since this was both of our project, mom decided she would make the cake and I would take care of the decorating. So I get to moms house around 1.
The cakes were not ready. The problem was, they had been baking for 2 hours before I walked in the door. After removing them from the oven, I rendered then totally useless. The outer crust was on the verge of burnt, while the inside was more liquid then sponge cake. My mom apologized, and now it was up to me to not only decorate it, but make it as well.
I run to the store and managed to catch a break in the ran going in. I got what I needed for the planned cakes, and upon exiting, the heavens opened up and I half expected to see an ark waiting in the parking lot. Now, I'm a far-parker. Meaning I'll park at the very end of a parking lot. This gets me some walking in and also saves the car from getting dinged or scratched.
Now I have what would probably be a 1 block walk from the doors to my car...in a solid
downpour. I put my hood up, tie the bags tight, and haul ass, making it in about 15 seconds, but none the less, soaked to the skivees.
This was only the start of it.
I started working my magic. I had decided on a fudge marble for the bottom for stability with a white cake topper that I had tinted pink to match my sisters wedding color. (Thank you Wilton's for actually putting the color name on the dye. Helps us color blind people)
I start baking. While the cakes are cooking, I'm making homemade chocolate for the layers. The cakes take 3 times longer because of the size of the pan, so I have to constantly adjust the temp
to prevent the sides from burning. Luckily, my oven rocks, and no problems were had except for time.
The cakes came out clean, so it was time to slice these suckers in half to fill with the home made chocolate. My sister loves chocolate, so it was only fitting that her wedding cake would have a thick gooey layer right in the middle. I layer it in, set the halves together, and set them in my fridge for an hour to set the chocolate fast to prevent any sagging.
It is now 6:30 pm, and I have to make the butter cream frosting that will seal the cakes and make a glue for the fondant that will go on later. The cakes come out , set, and go to the kitchen table while I finish the butter-cream frosting.
Using my new cake spatula, I enguaged in probably the hardest frosting I have ever done.
Why, you ask?
Because once you frost the cakes, you have to set it in the fridge for 2 hours to harden. Once hardened, you place the fondant over it. Now when you frost the cakes, any imperfections will be mirrored in the fondant. So a swirl mark, a divot, any imperfection, will show through. So for an hour, working in centimeter increments on a lazy susan, I smoothed, filled, smoothed, buffed, fixed and iced those damn cakes. Once done (both the cakes and my nerves0 they went into the fridge to harden.
I turn to my kitchen. Everything is coated in a thin layer of powdered sugar. I have so many dishes in the sink. I load the dishwasher full, and it barely makes a dent. So for the two hours while the cakes were setting, I cleaned, scrubbed and got the kitchen ready for the next wave.
9:30, the cakes come out, back to the kitchen table. I roll out my rolling mat, prep the work area, and plop the fondant down to begin rolling. Now my mat is supposed to be non stick.
Bullshit.
And with fondant, you can't use anything that isn't pure white, so powdered sugar is the only thing you can use to keep it from sticking. It doesn't work that well.
So here's the match for rolling fondant:
Bottom cake was 8 inches wide, 4 inches tall. This means I have to roll out a 16 inch circle. My fondant rolling pin was only 12 inches long, which means once I got close to the size needed, it wasn't single pass anymore, meaning ridges were forming. A half hour later, it was 16 inches as best as I could. On the cake it went.
Now, dropping rolled fondant onto a cake is a one time chance. If you're off by anything more then 1 millimeter, forget it, cause the fondant fuses to the frosting. if you have to peel it up, you have to re-fost. Luckily, I nailed it on the first drop. The smaller top tier was just of a pain, but successful.
I toss both pieces in the fridge to harden overnight to make it easier to handle and transport. It is now 1 am.
The next day, I wrap them in wax paper, put them in a fully padded transport box, and go to the hall where it was being held.
Luckily, no damage had been done to the cakes in transport, so I glove up, and start decorating it.
An hour later, here's the final product:
At the party, my sister loved it, and wanted to know if I was going to do her full size cake. I told her "no" initially, because making the smaller one was hell and a half.
But after thinking about it, I may call in for some help, and with what I learned from this last one, then full size shouldn't be that hard to pull off...
So I think I will do it for her. But for that, I'm using real flowers.
After the party that night at home, I fell asleep at 10 pm. I was so mentally and physically exhausted....
But I learned something new.
I learned how to make a wedding cake.
Flash
