The wedding season has arrived, and for me that means it’s wedding cake time. In a few weeks, I plan to bake my own wedding cake. You’re not the only one who wants to make their own wedding cake.
There are many things to consider before you make a wedding cake. Here are my top tips for making your own wedding cakes.
Consider the Number of Guests
When making a wedding cake, the first thing to consider is its size.
How many guests do you expect? How many tiers and what size tiers do you need to ensure that every guest has a piece?
You can combine tiers of different sizes in many ways. The number of servings of a tiered-cake can be varied.
You can find charts to help you with this. My wedding will have 120 guests and I’m planning to make a 4-tiered cake. The cake will have 12″, 10″, 8″, 6″ and 3″ tiers.
This cake should serve 134 people. I will have a buffer for the number of portions. It’s great because people sometimes want seconds.
Choose a Cake Design That You Can Achieve
It’s not always as simple as having the correct number of servings.
The look you want can also influence your decision. Some people prefer a certain number of tiers or a design which requires more space between each layer to decorate.
Our wedding cake will be a simple design. The cake will be decorated using the same flowers as my bouquets and will cascade across the diagonal.
Choose a design that you are confident in and can easily execute.
You may want to bake a small practice cake if you are not familiar with the concept of tiered cakes. You should test the flavors of your cake and frosting before you make it.
A test cake will ensure that the design you are considering is feasible and will come out as you imagine it.
It’s not a coincidence that the saying “practice is perfect” is so popular! You will gain confidence and peace of mind by practicing.
Use Fresh, Real Flowers to Decorate
Flowers are an easy and attractive way to decorate your wedding cake. There are many different kinds of flowers.
They are a lot more work than they look, but can be fun! It’s an art in itself, and most of us lack the time or skills to create them.
Buttercream flowers can also be used as a floral option. They look stunning when piped properly. It takes a lot more practice and skills to pipe them.
Real, fresh flowers can also be used to decorate your wedding cake. Nature is the best.
Have you ever stopped to look at a perfectly bloomed rose? It’s stunning.
Nothing I could create would be as beautiful as a freshly-cut flower. Decorating a cake with fresh flowers can be a beautiful and simple way.
Choose Your Favorite Flavor and Stick with It
After you have decided on the size, shape and decoration of the cake, your next major decision will be its flavor. This is a decision that you and your partner should make together.
Make your life easier by making the entire cake in that flavor.
You can choose your own flavor and have the other half pick theirs if you cannot agree.
Keep things simple by making your wedding cake with no more than two flavors.
It took me a long time to make four different flavors of wedding cake for my best friend. !
Focus on the best flavors that you can choose. You’re right, quality is better than quantity.
We are both obsessed with my Funfetti Cake Recipe. I plan to make the entire wedding cake in funfetti. Is this crazy? It’s a bit crazy, but I doubt anyone will be complaining once they try it.
Decorate with a Frosting you are comfortable making and decorating with
The frosting is just as important as the cake itself! Some might argue that this is the most crucial decision.
It really depends on your personal taste and what you feel most comfortable with. I love American buttercream and use it on all my cakes.
It’s the easiest frosting I have ever made! Butter and powdered icing sugar are all you need, along with some cream, salt and vanilla. You can make a batch in less than five minutes!
American buttercream, while easy to prepare, is the sweetest buttercream.
Some people like less sweet versions, such as Swiss meringue or Italian buttercream. Both frostings are made by whipping sugar and egg whites together to create a less sweet, fluffy frosting.
This type of buttercream is more difficult to make and requires some practice.
These cakes can be difficult to make and finicky. Use American buttercream if you want your wedding cake to be simple.
Make the cake in advance
You’ve got all the details worked out. Now it’s time for you to consider the timeline.
If properly wrapped and frozen, cake layers can be made weeks ahead. Buttercream can also be made ahead of time!
It also makes it more enjoyable to break up the work. You can take a break between the decorating and baking.
You can now put all of your creativity into decorating your cake.
If something does go wrong (you run out of sugar or burn your cake layers), you will have time to fix the situation. It will give you more time to correct the problem if something goes wrong (you burn your cake layers, run out of sugar, etc.
I normally assemble tiered cake 1-3 days prior to an event and plan to do this with my wedding.
We are expecting our families and friends to arrive a few days before the wedding. I want to make sure that we can spend as much time as possible with them.
Assembling the cake ahead of time will allow me to have more flexibility for any last-minute wedding preparations. I will add fresh flowers to our cake on the morning of the wedding and then drop it at the venue.
The cake will be left out for several more hours before it is cut. As long as it is supported properly and at room temperature, the cake should be fine.
Be sure not to leave your wedding cake in direct sunlight or heat.
