15 posts tagged “wedding cake”

Someone wants a wedding cake for December 13th, so I sat down and did the math and came up with a price tag that would make me willing to do her cake.  I am not crazy about the idea, but if she can pay the price tag then I can make the cake.  I guess we'll see after she sees the figure.  I won't hold my breath.  LOL!  So in the process I created a flicker account for a few of my wedding cake photos.  If you've followed my blog through the bakery saga, then you've likely seen them all already.  If not, they may look new.  Either way, I'm glad that I have these skills and sometimes it helps pay the bills.  What can I say?!  flickr photos

Entirely tired and grateful that the wedding is over – at least as far as I am concerned.  The kids may still be there dancing away, I don’t know.  I spent a couple days making a wedding cake and we demolished that thing in less than 10 minutes.  This is the first wedding cake I’ve done since I left the bakery.  It came together very nicely.

I think it may have been the best tasting cake I have ever made.  After my conversation with the bride about the flavors she wanted I tested out a number of things.  Banana cake was new to me, but it turned out beautifully.  I also kind of “invented” a filling for the white cake.  It was white chocolate almond ganache.  And I used some vanilla bean paste in it.  Oh!  Yum!  So of the six tiers two were chocolate with crème de mint filling.  Two were white cake with white chocolate almond filling and the last two were banana cake with butter cream filing. 

Once I got my knives on that cake it came apart easily and away we went.  I cut that cake up and hubby helped and we demolished that thing in no time flat.  I didn’t even take the time to look up and say “hi” to the people I knew that were at the wedding. 

It was a beautiful location, the bride and groom were beautiful and everything was gorgeous.  It was just too hot, and too loud.  As the evening wore on the temp outside cooled off and it became really nice.  Inside it was really hot and the music kept inching louder and louder.  I am not a loud noise person!  We tried to communicate some at the cake table, telling people what the cake flavors were but you had to yell to be heard and sometimes someone would put their mouth right by my ear and I still couldn’t make out what they were saying.  As I walked by a couple of 50 something folks sitting quietly at a table, I realized they were both wearing ear plugs.  Too funny!  Next time I’ll know.

The cake was beautiful, it tasted great, the people were happy and enjoying the celebration.  And the bride and groom are hopefully well on their way to their honeymoon.  All is well with the world.

I am making a wedding cake.  It's my first one ever. 

Well, that's not entirely true.  I've made so many wedding cakes I've lost count years ago.  I made my first cake in the late 80's - maybe 88?  Not sure.  And most of the time I'm pretty good at it.  I'm finally out of the bakery so when someone wants a wedding cake I get to bake the thing myself.

Well… this afternoon I started baking the wedding cake.  I'm doing it at church because there are two huge ovens and other great equipment and lots of room.  So tonight I am realizing that I screwed this cake up every which way.  WHAT?!  Am I NEW at THIS?  WHAT IS my problem?!  (Same as usual – my back is killing me!)

So… I made the banana cake and then a little while later realized that I had too many bananas left over.  Hmm… so I cut into the banana cakes and they look fine, it’s just that they don’t have the planned amount of bananas in them.

So… I made the white cake and then a little while later realized (yeah, this sounds familiar so far) that I had the pudding mixes left over.  Hmmm… I had intended to use a white chocolate pudding mix in each batch and there they are sitting on the counter top just laughing at me.  So the white cake is missing its white chocolate, the banana cake is light on bananas.  I think I managed not to screw up the chocolate so far.  But there is still time.

When I arrived at the church kitchen to work there was the Mother of the Groom there with her stuff all over the work space.  Ok, so I had reserved the space but that doesn’t really mean anything.  And the parents of the Groom are paying for the cake.  I’m not a big fan of having the client watch the cake making process.  I'm already feeling a little strange toward her because she's done a number of things to try to change the order away from what the bride asked for.  I had never thought of her as being overbearing or anything but I have observed her making decisions without the input of the bride or groom.  I guess I'm working from the bias that it's their wedding.  But families are different.  I wasn't real keen on starting the wedding cake with her in the kitchen.  I already feel a little like I'm going behind her back because I've chosen to take instruction from the bride rather than then her on a few details.  She kept putzing around and didn’t leave until I was well into the process.  And when I pulled out the olive oil I thought she was gonna freak!  Seriously!  You should have seen her face!!  Olive oil is good for you and I think it does something earthy, rich and marvelous in cake.  Not that I could really tell the difference between a canola and olive oil cake in a blind taste test.  But anyway.  I was glad when she finely left, I found her presence there really distracting.

Oh, did I mention...  I knocked two dozen jumbo eggs off the counter on to the floor - kersplat!  They were still in their boxes so I only lost a few, but boy that is the stupidest feeling in the world. 

I consider baking a cake as part of the creative process as much as anything else I do.  I use a cake mix but I don’t follow the instructions on the box.  Over the years I’ve developed a formulation that has worked very nicely for me.  I add things and subtract things.  All that to say, this is a cake mix cake, but it is better than the usual cake mix result.  (And cake mix cakes are usually better than scratch cakes, they are lighter and the texture is finer.)  Right now I'm feeling protective of that formula.  And the mother of the groom peppered me with questions.  How many times in the course of a conversation does one have to repeat that the details of my recipe will remain a mystery?!  I wanted to just tell her that I wouldn't be answering that question just like I didn't answer her the first five times she asked the question. 

The commercial dish washer was malfunctioning and it was very distracting.  I did’t know what it was doing, but it was really loud and driving me crazy.  I had to call hubby to help with that one.  He walked in, pushed one button and there was instant silence.  Grrrrrr!  I was grateful for the relief from that racket but annoyed that it was that simple.  If he had told me to push that button on the phone – I could have attained the blissful silence myself.   That thing has a three minute cycle.  I guess the dishes that were in there for 30 minutes could be considered clean.   

And the back is killing me again today.  It doesn’t make sense but there ya have it.  And I got the lecture from hubby about how something is seriously wrong with me, the little tiny bit of work I’ve been doing shouldn’t result in this big pain… yibidy yibidy.  ‘Little bit of work’ my a$$.  And it's not that I didn't ask for help this time, I did.  He thinks I’ve got to go back to the doctor and on and on he went.  I’ve been to the Doc and after a whole pile of tests they don’t know any more about it then they did to begin with.  So… what do I have to gain by going back there?  I know I could blow another $1000 on tests, and that’s WITH health insurance.  I’ve been hitting the pain meds, but clearly not enough because tonight I forgot the bananas and dropped the eggs.  And even though I took a cute little blue (not viagra) pill, I'm still really feeling it.  What's a girl to do?! 

Hmmm… just another day here in the loony bin. 

I have one more day at Bipolar Bakery and then I’m finished.  Three out of five employees are leaving in the space of a week.  And today I found myself in the middle of a conflict between the 19 year old Elf who made my icings and the 50-something Boss Lady.  I could not for the life of me figure out which one was the adult.  Un-freakin-believable! 

 

Tomorrow is my last day of this weird wild ride.  But why do I know that this is not the end?  I can sense that the same way I knew that the wedding cake delivery was not going to go well this evening.  So I went prepared.  It got dicey but I was able to fix the damage that happened in route.  It turned out ok.  Not stellar, but ok. 

 

And a girl cried when she saw the cake we did for her this evening.  A sixteen year old girl cried over the Power Rangers (not joking) cake I did for her birthday.  And I don’t even think I got a photo of that one.  Oh well. 

 

I do wonder what tomorrow holds.  Another Saturday, another wedding cake. 

I didn’t get a real weekend.  Actually, it was a lovely weekend but there was just so much of it that I woke up really tired this morning.  Saturday I delivered a wedding cake and told my boss that I’d work through the end of May and that would be it for me at the bakery.  Just between us kids, I’ll likely still go back and help out here and there but I knew I’d never get a raise unless I left completely and then made that a condition of returning.  And the girl they hired for me to train came in for two hours a while back and saw my work and tried to decorate a cake with the icing I use.  I’ve never seen her since.  She got totally intimidated but I thought I had really encouraged her strongly, so either I entirely missed that boat on what she was actually feeling or else the intimidation got the best of her.  Either way, it leaves the bakery without a decorator and that’s not cool.  But it’s not my bakery, and therefore not my problem.  Though it is harder to leave without leaving them someone who can take my place.

 

Sunday we delivered a wedding cake to Luray Virginia which is an hour and a half from here.  I’ve never taken a cake that far.  It was a small casual wedding on a lake and we set the wedding cake up in a picnic pavilion.  I had barely gotten started when the first bugs came and started to hang out on the cake.  A prospect that I do not find appetizing, but that’s just me.  It was a beautiful day with an incredible view.  And the groom was absolutely adorable.  It just seemed like a very casual and comfortable group of really good folks. 

 

Boss Lady and I stopped at an artisan food place for lunch on the way back and the food was incredible.  (I paid for my own!)  I made the mistake of saying that I didn’t feel like I had worked, that it was more like a day trip.  And she indicated that she was glad I felt that way and something about not needing to get paid for the hours I was in the car.  She said she’d have the Business Manager Elf talk to me about that.  So apparently she’ll sick the “pit bull” on me to see if they can get me to agree to not being paid for working on a Sunday.  If they even seriously try that I will be furious.  Sadly, not surprised, just furious.  I made $50 (before taxes come out) for working Sunday, and spent $57 buying sugar cookies that I had decorated to take to two parties over the weekend.  I got really frustrated with myself for not putting quite a few of those cookies back but BL was standing there breathing down my neck as I was trying to make up my mind.  So I bought more than I should have instead of taking my time.  I was really annoyed with myself for that.  So if they try any weirdness, I’ll just remind them that whatever I earned that day I returned to the till by buying overpriced cookies because I was not at home where I could have made a whole batch for waaaay less.  So with my lunch of $10 and the sugar cookies, I ended up with a net loss on that day.  *grumble*

 

I’m already at my first job of the day and will head off to the bakery at 10:00 this morning.  After work there I will teach a friend whatever she can learn in the way of cake decorating.  Sadly, she’s leaving the area for culinary school and can’t take my job.  I think she has a natural knack for it though, so I’m looking forward to that. 

 

This is my last week at the bakery.  After fighting with BL once a week for the last number of weeks over not having the equipment I need to do the job… the battle is about to be over.  I will do my best to end things nicely and leave on an up note.  There are three of us leaving at the same time so it’s a good time to go.  I know I’ve been saying the end was in sight for a long time…  I may have to be a real hard a$$ to accomplish that goal, but I really think this is it.  I hope.  I'm ready for the next thing.

 

I'll post photos of this weekend's wedding cakes when I get the chance.   

The second wedding cake of the weekend was much bigger and was at a semi posh local hotel.  There were only 250 guests planned, but we made a total of 600 servings of cake for them.  The bride’s cake served 255 people, the groom’s cake another 100 or so and then they ordered 250 cupcakes on top of all that.  They packaged the cupcakes in delightful little boxes for the guests to take home with them.  What a lovely idea.  (Unless you are the poor schlep making 250 identical cupcakes!)

 

 

 

The Bride’s cake was a lovely red velvet cake, iced with butter cream and decorated in black colored chocolate swirls.  (Red velvet is a pain to ice, it keeps wanting to "bleed" crumbs into the icing!)  It was a striking look, the contrast of the colors was very pleasing.  I think it would have been a lovely presentation once they started cutting all that red cake!  I don’t like red velvet myself, I just feel like I’m doing something horrible to my body by eating that much food color (and it really takes a lot!) but there is no doubt that it is a pretty and delicious cake! 

 

 

 

 

I got all five tiers set in place and all the details finished and then looked around for the flowers for the top of the cake.  The florist had cut all the little orchids off the stem and my heart sank.  What a stupid move that was, but they clearly didn’t know any better.  So I started scouting the centerpieces on the tables to find stems of stuff that I could borrow for the top of the cake.  I snipped a few twigs here and there and combined with the orchid blossoms, it turned out very pretty.

 

 

  

The Groom’s cake was his frat emblem on a full sheet cake that was marble white/chocolate inside.  It turned out nicely I thought.

 

 

 

And then there were the cupcakes.  The Loser cupcakes.  At every turn we screwed up this order!

 

The first screw up happened when the elves took the order.  The client wanted an “L” on each cupcake, and the order said they needed to be made out of fondant.  BL told me to use a cookie cutter to make them and it wouldn’t be a big deal.  I took a look at that cookie cutter and I wondered to myself… it would look better for a child’s event than for a ritzy wedding, but I knew it was the only way to do 250 fondant “L’s” without wanting to jump from the nearest bridge.  (Doing a bunch of “L’s” out of Icing would have been quicker and easier but someone up-sold the client fondant – so that’s what I was stuck making.)  And with the amount of cake orders I had in addition to the weddings, I was about to pull out my hair anyway.  So I started in making these infernal “L’s.”  The bride’s mother happened by and BL picked up one of the “L’s” to go show her.  I was about half way through making them and I stopped BL by simply saying… “Don’t ask a question I don’t want the answer to!”  She looked a little surprised, looked at the fondant “L” in her hand and looked at me, realizing what I was saying.  She laughed, put down the “L” and went back to work laughing.  I made about 275 of those stupid things the first time around and had to come back and make more because they were fragile and I broke quite a few of them. 

 

 

 

 

Boss Lady is the baker and she just couldn’t keep up this week.  (For good reason – because the bread elf is gone and the brownie/cookie elf was on vacation.)  So I didn’t start seeing those cup cakes until it had already become crunch time.  They were red velvet cake in silver cupcake liners.  I had decorated the first batch and as I moved them some went flying off the board, like penguins into the ocean.  Those little silver liners are slippery!  I lost quite a few with that stupid human trick but it turned out that only one was beyond fixing.  So I used some non-slip stuff (the same stuff that they use under rugs to keep them from sliding around) and worked late into the night finishing up the first round of cupcakes.  But that was the beginning.

 

 

 

When one of the elves came in the next morning and looked at the cupcakes with all those little “L’s” on them… she dubbed them “the loser cupcakes” complete with full tilt New Yorker attitude and sign language.  The name stuck.  BL passed an edict that the client must NOT know that we named them thus, so the name really stuck. 

 

 

 

 

I was stressing because the rest of the cupcakes weren’t even baked and they are time consuming.  So she started the first batch but forgot to add in the rising agent and she didn’t figure it out until they were in the oven so the next batch of cupcakes didn’t rise.  They tasted a little strange and they were very short and dense.  She didn’t have much time to bake replacement cupcakes but she finally decided that she would at least try.  It turned out that we still had to use some of the red hocky puck cupcakes to finish out the 250, but at least they were finished.

 

 

 

The bride’s Mom and Dad came in to package up the cupcakes.  Each cupcake got the royal treatment in a red box with tissue paper and a ribbon with the bride and groom’s names on it.  Only the Bride’s Mom wasn’t crazy about my little cookie cutter “L’s.”  I didn’t blame her, I didn’t think much of them by that point myself.  But it was the morning of the wedding and there they were, all 250 of them.  BL scoured the order to see if anyone had written “cursive L” anywhere but there was nothing.  It was sad because making cursive “L’s” out of icing would have been so much easier for me.  The Bride’s dad just shook his head and told his wife “It is what it is” and everyone decided to be happy about it.  (He was a freakin genius!) 

 

They wanted to move the cart that I had put all the cupcakes on.  But then they realized that there was no way to get the cart through that part of the bakery, it would just be easier to move them tray by tray.  So the Bride’s mom picked up the one tray with the extras on it (that didn’t have the non-slip plastic on it) and I had to catch cupcakes like I was Michael Jordan.  Loser cupcakes just kept trying to jump. 

 

 

 

 

It is done and over.  I imagine that most of the cupcakes in their pretty boxes have been devoured.  It was a beautiful wedding and I’m certain that the new Mr. and Mrs. “L” are enjoying a lovely honeymoon somewhere marvelous.  On the other hand, I don’t want to see another red velvet cake for a very long time.  And 250 cupcakes?  Never again! 

 

And just for the record, it's the cupcakes that were losers, not the people.  The people were great.  And if you happen to know the lovely couple, remember that I was sworn to secrecy.  :)  (for all the good that did!)  LOL!

This little bitty wedding cake that turned out so cute.  This wedding party had about 15 guests and was in a local restaurant.  The cake icing was tinted a ginger color to match a paint chip (yes a paint chip from the paint department) that the bride gave us.  Then swirls of ivory butter cream finished off the look.  It was a cute little thing, it almost looked like it hadn’t quite grown up yet.  There was a medallion with a monogram on it that also went on the cake but I forgot to take it with me on the delivery, and then when I went back to deliver that element I forgot to take the camera.  Oh well, it was cute without it.  The whole cake wasn't much taller than 12 inches, plus the topper.  It's an 8 inch, 6 inch and a 4 inch.  I'm pleased with it.  I think the folks at the restaurant were going to move it, so I hope they didn't destroy it doing that.  Oh well, I have to keep reminding myself that it isn't my problem if something happens after I leave.

The bride brought us a napkin with a really pretty monogram on it. So I made a fondant medallion and carefully copied the monogram, bit by tedious bit.  It is hand painted on the dried fondant with a mixture of vodka, food color and luster dust to match the color of the ribbon.  I wish I would have gotten a photo of the napkin I copied but it is there on the table on the lower left of the photo.  The reception was in a barn on a lake in a rural area, very picturesque.  And the barn was decorated beautifully with lots of flowers and those pretty blue table cloths.  I was happy with how the cake turned out.  As far as wedding cakes go, the kind with ribbon and a few simple borders are just about as easy as it gets.  Carefully place a few flowers and it’s done. 

I decorated a wedding cake this weekend.  It was the first one of the season.  The bride wore a white gown with apple red beaded embroidery.  She wanted the cake to match.  So I studied the photographs of the dress and set about making an icing version of the design.  I’m happy with how it turned out.  It would have been prettier with lots of flowers and greenery on top, but they chose that tiny little figure for the top.  Oh well, it still looked pretty good.  I wish I could have seen her in the dress with the cake.  I’ll bet that was nice.

 

 

 

The groom’s nickname is “Yeti” because he is apparently rather hairy.  So they asked for a groom’s cake that had a yeti on the cake, like Harry and the Henderson’s.  So I looked up Harry and put him on the groom’s cake.  I was happy with how he turned out looking kind of cute.  I started giggling as I was finishing up the cake because it kind of looks like a friend of mine.  LOL!

 

 

 

And they had only set up one cake table, so Harry had to share the table with the bride's cake.  The bride's cake is white and the inside of the groom's cake is chocolate with raspberry filling.  Yummm!!! 

 

Sometime in early December a frantic woman called me and asked if we’d take a wedding cake order for December the 22^nd?  She’d tried everyone and we were her only hope.  I talked briefly with BL and we agreed to do the cake.  (Yeah, like we had nothing better to do on the busiest week of the year.)

 

She came in and chose a simple cake from out of our books and put down a deposit.  But she didn’t know how many guests so she left without finalizing the order.  She hadn’t heard how many guests her fiancé would be inviting. 

 

It got kind of close to the date and I wondered if we were ever going to hear back from her but finally we did get her number and we worked out the sizes of the tiers to get the right number of servings for her event. 

 

The next time I talked to her she sounded pretty rough and told me she had strep throat.  That was the week of the wedding and she had been told to stay home and rest.  Was the wedding going to go on with a sick bride?  Yeah, she went shopping for ribbon and brought me a few spools the next day.  Strep throat and all.

 

Our business manager elf worked with her to get directions to the reception.  It was a private home in the boonies and they were not sure of the house number and she called us three or four times just to change the house number.  That should have been a clue. 

 

We used Map Quest to get directions to the house number she gave us.  Uh… yeah.  That might not have been our best choice.  So we got to the area where the directions said there should be a house.  And we drove around the area for a while looking but nothing looked right. 

 

Finally we spotted a huge house back off the road and it had a big white tent beside it.  We decided that was our house and we set off in search of the road that would take us to that house.  We found a mailbox with a big bow on it that looked like it might be for a wedding.  So we entered a really really long lane.  We drove down this really bumpy dirt road for a while, having completely lost sight of the house.  We really began to wonder, but there was no choice really… drive delicate decorated cake down bumpy windy gravel road hoping that it came out in the right place and the cake would be ok once we got there.  Oy!

 

Whew!  It WAS the house we saw from the road...  And it was huge.  HUGE! And there was the big white tent beside it.  Yeah, but no cars anywhere.  Nobody on the grounds.  Nada!  We were a bit late but it was about 4:00 and the reception wasn’t until 7:00. 

 

The tent was open and everything was beautifully decorated, but no people anywhere.  We went to the door and we could see through the glass the table that looked like it was set up for the cake.  So we knocked…

 

And got nothing. 

 

I heard barking dogs from the inside, which made me curious but nobody came to the door.  BL and I looked at each other, and looked at the door.  In houses this big one expects an alarm system.  She tried the door while I cringed waiting for sirens to start blaring.  The door was unlocked and no sirens went off.  Whew!

 

I looked around for dogs.  We could hear them, and it sounded like a lot of them.  I've heard stories about dogs taking out whole wedding cakes!  Which is really funny to me because it was NOT my cake, my dog or my wedding!  LOL!  But at that moment I just wanted to know that the animals making all that racket would not be coming near this cake.

 

We entered the biggest house I’ve ever been in (well, besides Pat Robertson’s house but that’s a story for another day.)  We felt like intruders involved in a dangerous caper.  Someone was going to jump out and pounce on us any moment.  Then we found a huge flat screen TV blaring 101 Dalmatians in the living room.  So THAT was the doggy noise!  Whew!  That was a relief...

 

I took a look at the table and it was a pretty rickety little thing...  I hate rickety tables for big heavy wedding cakes!  So we set up the cake, added the fresh flowers, put on the bows, took the photos and left.  We joked about what a nice gift we’d given those marvelous people who were planning a big Christmas party.  Wouldn't they be surprised at our contribution to their festivities?  We could have loaded up the car with the huge TV and the 101 Dalmatians if we’d wanted to. 

 

(Uh, we didn’t.)

 

 

 

The bride called and told us how lovely it all was.  It WAS the right house.  And that is the story of the "in sickness and in health" "Lost" "101 Dalmations" "Home Alone" Christmas wedding cake decorated with strep throat ribbon.  Whew!  Could I make this stuff up?