I delivered my first tiered wedding cake last Friday! Yaaay! My friend and co-worker Kelly married the love-of-her-life, Lon, last Saturday. It was a beautiful ceremony and a fun-filled reception!
She first asked me to make her wedding cake a little over a year ago. At the time, I wasn’t really sure how to respond. I didn’t even know if I would still be living in town at that point and of course, here I am, so of course, i said yes to making the cake! I was a bit intimidated. I watched hours of youtube videos on how to insert “fat bobba straws” into tiers of baked cake and how to use cardboard rounds between the layers and then how to gently insert one long dowel through the the whole thing to hold it together during transportation so nothing would slide around. That all went fairly smoothly. I think it took me a lot longer to complete all of that than it should have, or will in the future I hope, but it was an excellent learning experience.
I also contemplated actually assembling the cake on site instead of at home and then moving it. Since it was to be a fairly small “show cake” (8″, 6″, 4″ double tiers, reaching a total height somewhere around 15 inches) I decided to put it all together at home for my own sanity. Also, the contact person at the hotel where I was to deliver this cake hadn’t called me back to let me know if I would have use of the kitchen or not so it made it kindof hard to plan it all out. I had called her and she still didn’t call me back until the day OF delivery. Frustration.
Actually, everything about this wedding cake experience went very well except for the delivery. There was no dropping of cakes or anything I’ll just say I was less than impressed with the wedding coordinator at the hotel, which I will not name. The bride-to-be had asked this contact person to call me multiple times and she still didn’t call me back until the day of? And so I told her when I would arrive with the cake and she said she would have someone come down with a cart to transport the cake. I drove to the hotel, which was downtown which meant we had to take the expressway which meant I drove like a little old lady the whole way, while my boyfriend Troy held the cake on it’s board. My eyes, constantly flickering over to make sure his hands weren’t touching the sides (they never did) and that he never decided to take a bite (which he never did, and would never, but joking threatened to LOL).
Don’t do it!!!!!!
Nervous wreck. We pulled into the front loop at the hotel, turned the emergency flasher on the car on and took the cake inside, expecting it to be instantly whisked away into magical-wedding-preparation-land by some very well practiced and professional staff members. This did not happen. We went to the concierge desk and asked the gentlemen there to please phone our contact person. She did not answer. He called her over and over again. And then started calling every other person he could think of who would be able to get in touch with her. We waited in the lobby for at least 15 minutes (which felt like 2 hours) with this wedding cake. Finally the coordinator came down. Not with a cart, not with any help of any kind to transport the cake. And she said, “Ok I’ll take it.” I didn’t have a great feeling about that, but Troy handed the cake to her after she assured us she could handle it. She immediately grimaced and said “Wow this is heavy!”. So Troy took the cake back and we said that, if she led the way, we would take it to the kitchen ourselves. One would never imagine that on such a journey one would decide riding a very steep and very long escalator would be a good life-choice. But that is where she led us. She hopped right on like it was nothing and turned around and, as she disappeared up into the distance said “Oh, maybe this wasn’t a good idea.” I watched Troy standing, confused, concerned but most of all determined at the bottom of the escalator, wrap his arms around the base of the cake board (very carefully of course) and take a very tentative step onto the escalator, holding his breath I’m sure. Annnnd, sigh of relief. He was such a good helper.
Close up of the side of one of the layers, piped in rosettes.
She promised us that there would be no more escalator rides or stairs after that. That was a lie. There was a set of narrow, downward stairs leading to the kitchen, but after dealing with the escalator it seemed like a “piece of cake”! Hahahaha….. Ok… enough corniness? I’m very, very sorry dear readers. Lol.
Moving on. We successfully got the cake delivered to a questionable smelling walk in refrigerator and were on our way, back to our car which was still running with the emergency lights on in the valet.
Of course we had to celebrate! And so we did with roof top burgers and a margarita at a bistro downtown!
Mmmm I love eggs on burgers!
I didn’t even tell you about the cake itself yet! We kept things fairly simple, which in hindsight was a true blessing for me, this being my first stacked cake. The cake it self was a fairly basic, but very delicious white cake. Tender but firm enough to hold up well to stacking and to make nicely cut slices. The cakes were soaked with a lemon simply syrup. Each tier was composed of two equally sized cake rounds, between which was a layer of lemon curd cream. This filling is the stuff dreams are made of. Sweet, tangy and so fresh. I had never tasted, let alone made, fresh lemon curd but let me just tell you, it was a revelation! I made fresh whipped cream and folded this into the curd to make the cream filling. YUM. The icing for the cake was a lemon swiss meringue buttercream. Swiss meringue has become my go-to frosting because it isn’t sickly sweet, pipes beautifully, holds up well to room temperature and even a bit of heat without refrigeration and is fairly easy to make. It is also easy to add other flavors to. I piped the bottom and top layers of the cake with buttercream rosettes and the center layer I combed, wrapped a blue ribbon around and inserted the stem of a pretty decorative bunch of flowers. I sprinkled luster dust over the whole cake and placed a few pearl nonpareils. She loved it! I made a small test cake to make sure all the components tasted good and sliced well. So here is a picture of the inside:
I was very proud that day but mostly relieved! I am so glad that I have this first one under my belt while at the same time I can’t wait to do the next! Thank you Kelly for allowing me the honor and opportunity to make this cake for you! You wedding was gorgeous!!!!!!!
And thank you so much Troy for your help along the way and in delivering the cake!
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