Last week I designed, baked and decorated my first wedding cake, as a present for my sister-in-law and her new hubby. A good opportunity to try something new, and get a little practice without the pressure of doing it commercially. In other words, nobody was going to growl if it wasn’t perfect.
I needn’t have worried - the cake turned out especially well.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of what went into this cake - including the quantities used in each tier size - in the hope that someone else can make use of this.
Planning
I did a lot of research before making a start to this, with the help of my lovely wife Kirstin. There was to be no dessert provided by the caterers, so the cake would need to feed 150 people by itself. With the wedding being held on Waiheke Island, there were additional logistical concerns in getting the cake to the venue undamaged. The cake needed to stay fresh for at least 2-3 days so choosing the right recipe was important. It needed to be a recipe that most people would like, which rules out the traditional fruit wedding cake, and be stable enough to support several tiers. The large cake tins needed to fit in the oven I had available. And I needed to attempt something with a realistic level of difficulty, this being my first cake and all.
Practice cake
I decided early on that a smaller-sized practice cake would be a good idea, made a week in advance. This would be a good opportunity to test out the chosen recipe and see how it tasted 3 days on. I would take the practice cake to a party with friends (not the same ones attending the wedding) and solicit their feedback on taste, decration, and overall thoughts. I would be able to refine my decorating techniques and hopefully make some mistakes to learn from.
Above: Friends deliver some "honest" feedback on my scaled-down practice cake.
While the practice cake added additional complexity to the job (and another 6.5 hours), I learned a lot from my practice cake.
- My chosen recipe was very good, though perhaps a bit dry which I now attribute to storing it in the fridge.
- The shortening I used in the icing was a bit chunky, and jammed up the fine tip piping nozzle I had chosen. The decoration looked rather messy.
- The bottom layer had a very ’rounded’ top edge, which didn’t look great.
- The 2 inch increments between layers (10-8-6 inch) made the cake look too steep, prompting me to choose 14-10-6 for the final cake, so 4 inch increments.
- Each layer would need 2 cakes rather than one, to give the cake the required height.
Valuable feedback.
The plan
After the practice cake was done, I decided to go for a Madeira cake, which research indicated was a nice firm consistency and stayed fresh longer than most other cakes. I would go with a 3-tier cake of 14-10-6 inch, with 2 cakes in each tier to give a height of 3-4 inches per tier. I would colour the middle layer burned orange to match the bridesmaid’s dresses, and decorate with white icing and orange flowers as found on the day. I would bake the cakes on Wednesday, transport on Thursday, and decorate on Friday (Wedding day). Flowers would be sourced and arranged immediately before the ceremony, as they would otherwise wilt in the hot weather. Yes, the plan was coming together.
It’s worth noting at this point that the 14" cake tin won’t fit into most household ovens. Measure your oven at the early stages of planning to make sure you don’t get a last-minute surprise.
Baking
Setting aside a whole day for baking, I opted for Anne’s Madeira cake recipe, tweaked slightly. My research indicated that most madeira cake recipes were pretty similar - all had lots of butter, caster sugar and lemon zest as the main ingredients, although the proportions do vary slightly.
I have been told on good authority that the secret to good wedding cakes is to lower the temperature 40 degrees and increase the cooking time, and not to use fan-bake. This is especially important on the triple-mix recipes used on the larger-sized cakes.
This recipe makes an 8" cake - I did some calculations to figure out how much was needed for other sizes.
- 175g butter - softened
- 3/4 cup caster sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 3/4 cups self raising flour
- 3 tablespoons milk - full cream
- Zest 1 lemon
Generously grease sides and line base with baking paper, an 8 inch tin. Using a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Sift flour then fold into creamy mixture along with milk and lemon zest. Spoon into cake tin, level top. Bake at 140 degrees C, the baking time depending on the size of the cake (see below).
- 6" = 1 hour
- 8" = 1 hour 10 minutes
- 10" = 1 hour 20 minutes
- 12" = 1 hour 30 minutes
- 14" = 1 hour 45 minutes
There is no magic formula here, these are the times I used and they worked well. Your oven may vary, so always test with a wooden skewer near the end of the cooking time.
I like having a little helper
Where to get cake tins
After looking around a bit to find cake tins, I decided to buy myself a set as hiring for 1 week plus didn’t work out to be economical, and there is an excellent chance I will use them again for a future wedding cake.
If you do need cake tins (and are in New Zealand), I’m quite happy to hire these out for a reasonable rate, please contact me for details. I have 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 inch tins available. These cost just under $200 to buy, which adds a lot to the cost of a one-off cake.
Cooling
After the cakes come out of the oven, allow them to cool in the tin for 5 mins, then place on a wire rack to cool. Once cool, put the cake in the fridge for 30 mins to firm up, which makes them easier to cut.
After the cake has cooled off and firmed up in the fridge, you will need to cut off the top so you have a flat surface. With this recipe, I cut each cake to 4cm, which worked out to be 8cm or 3 1/4 inches when doubled-up, a good, impressive height. I measured each cake when cutting off the top to ensure this was accurate.
Upscaling
I wanted each tier to be the same height, so I was quite particular at making sure the right amount of mix went into each size cake tin. As you use bigger tins, the amount of cake mix required gets exponentially larger. I calculated the required mix based on the surface area of the cake, which turned out to be very accurate.
The numbers here are relative to an 8 inch cake (ie the standard mix), and indicate how many mixes are needed for each cake. Note that I was using 2 cakes for each layer, so double these numbers when buying your ingredients.
- 4" = 0.24
- 6" = 0.56
- 8" = 1
- 10" = 1.56
- 12" = 2.26
- 14" = 3.06
So if you are making a 14 inch cake, multiply the standard cake recipe by 3, or if you are being fussy ‘3 and a bit’. Because I used 2 cakes per layer, the bottom 14 inch layer was made up of a whopping 6 mixes of cake recipe.
If you have another size cake, divide the area in inches (Pi R Squared) by 50 to get the number of mixes required.
Icing
Icing is done on the same day as baking. The rolled fondant icing seals the cake, and helps it stay fresh. Alternatively, you can store the un-iced cake in the freezer and do the icing on the day.
There are 2 layers of icing. The first layer is a crumb layer which gives the fondant something to stick to, keeps crumbs under control, and stiffens the cake up which makes applying the fondant easier. I also put a layer of jam and icing in between the 2 cakes in each tier. The jam is yummy, and also looks good when cut.
Crumb-layer icing
Use the following recipe for buttercream icing. You will need perhaps 2-3 mixes to ice all cakes, but do these one at a time and use what you need.
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 1/4 tsp salt (optional)
- 1 cup icing sugar
- 6 Tbsp water (approx)
Mix the shortening, salt and vanilla together with a spoon, and break up any large chunks. Add icing sugar and water, then whisk with an electric blender for up to 5 mins. Add water as needed to get the right consistency, which should be soft enough to spread but firm enough to stay in place.
Assemble the 2 cakes, cut sides together. The top cake will be upside-down, as the un-cut side of the cake will have a better shape and will look better. Optionally, apply a layer of jam and icing between the cakes, otherwise just a layer of icing. This helps the cakes stick together, though admittedly, not much.
At this point, the cakes should be sitting on their cake boards. You want to buy cake boards that are a half-inch smaller than the cake tin, so a 5.5" board for a 6" cake and so on.
Ice the top and sides of the cake with buttercream icing. The goal here is not perfection, as it will be hidden by the fondant - however you want to make sure there are no major bumps or dips as these will show through.
After the crumb layer has been applied, return the cake to the fridge for the icing to harden. After removing from the fridge, trim off any little bits of icing sticking out with a knife.
Fondant icing
I still have a lot to learn about fondant icing, so I’ll refrain from giving out too much advice on this one. I was told to use ‘Pettinice’ brand icing, available from Foodtown, Countdown, and other supermarkets (but not Pak n’ Save). Each pack of icing is 750g, and you will need to use approximately the following amount for each cake…
- 6" = 1/2 pack
- 8" = 3/4 pack
- 10" = 1 pack
- 12" = 1.5 packs
- 14" = 2 packs
This allows for a fairly generous icing layer - I didn’t micromanage this and as such my icing may have been different thicknesses. Use this as a starting point.
Fondant needs to be massaged by hand to get it to a pliable consistency. Add your colouring at this stage if you are using it, it will take extra massaging to get the colour consistent and avoid marbling. Make sure your hands, tools, and work surface is spotlessly clean as you don’t want crumbs or contaminants getting into your icing. If you have a cake wheel sheet like I did, this is a very handy tool to have. Otherwise, lubricate your work surface with shortening, and roll out the fondant to the size of the cake + the height of the sides. So for a 10 inch cake with 3 inch sides, you will need a 16 inch circle of fondant.
Carefully drop the fondant sheet over the cake, and trim off the excess with scissors (don’t recycle this excess fondant if it has crumbs in it). Using a plastic fondant tool or similar apparatus, smooth the fondant into the cake. Use a mix of icing sugar and cornflour as a lubricant, used sparingly, especially on coloured layers. You will probably need to re-trim the sides as the fondant is pulled down the sides of the cake.
My best advice is to not to play with the fondant too much. There will be small holes and imperfections in the fondant which are surprisingly difficult to remove, but surprisingly easy to hide using the decoration layer of piped icing and flowers. Guests will have trouble spotting small imperfections. The bottom of the cake will be a bit ratty looking, which is why the bottom half-inch is usually covered by icing blobs or a decorative ribbon.
Storage and transport
I didn’t manage to find a definitive answer on this, so I’d be interested to hear what professionals do at this stage. My practice cake was stored in the fridge and was a bit dry / stale after 3 days - so I wouldn’t recommend that option.
I stored the 2 smaller layers at room temperature in airtight plastic containers - the cake placed on the lid of the container with the container being transported upside down. This meant I didn’t have to reach into the container to remove the cake, which was great, but extra care is needed when picking up the container. What I should have also done is use double-sided tape or a splotch of icing to stick the cake board to the container lid - my cakes moved around in their containers and banged the side, causing a small amount of damage.
The large 14" layer was too big for any containers, especially with the 18" tray it was mounted on. I settled for a cardboard box with tin foil loosely draped over the top of the cake. Extra care was taken to not place anything on top of this box. I tried to store the cakes in a cool place at all times, but with all the moving around and the hot weather this was far too difficult and I settled for ‘out of direct sunlight’.
Freezing the cakes before icing is also a good alternative, and would potentially mean you could ice at the venue and save on the stress of moving the iced cakes around.
Decorations
The pattern I chose was found in a cake book - a nice effect which adds texture to the cake (and hides a great many flaws). The contrast of the white pattern on the orange cake looked fantastic. I then decorated with orange flowers, sourced at the last minute from a local florist and off the side of the road.
Assembly
The cake should be assembled on the day, at the venue. Use small wooden dowel sticks to support each layer, and these need to be cut to length with a saw. I used 5 support sticks in the bottom layer, and 4 in the middle layer. Passers-by seemed concerned that I would need a saw for making a cake - they were wondering what the thing was made of.
Decorative Icing
Icing the pattern is easier than expected. I used the cake wheel to mark the cake into sixteen segments, with the decorative icing going in every other segment. If you don’t have one of these available, measure the circumference of the circle and divide by 16, then measure and mark each segment. Try to setup your markings so the decorated segments cover the worst flaws in the fondant.
Use the above icing recipe for the decoration - keeping with a stiffer consistency so it doesn’t droop. Probably a half-mix is sufficient, but make up extra if you are colouring the icing as you don’t want to run out and have to colour-match. Make sure you use fine, good quality shortening. I didn’t on my practice cake, and it jammed up the piping nozzles, forcing me into using a very large nozzle which didn’t look great at all. On the real cake, I used a better shortening, a finer nozzle, and the effect was far better.
Buy a good steel nozzle from a cake shop, I used a size 2 nozzle but had others available just in case.
I did the decorative icing at the venue. Being a handy strong lad and also technically competant with laptops and projectors, I was constantly being given other tasks, however don’t underestimate the size of this job. I was there for 6 hours in total, with some time being lost to other tasks and some to getting the consistency right for the icing and dealing with a few minor blockages (even with the good shortening).
I used coloured ribbons to place around the base of each cake, secured in place using a little buttercream icing.
Flowers
I got lucky. The local florist had some nice gerberas which I plucked the petals from and ‘randomly’ sprinkled around the layers and base. For the top, I found some pretty orange calla lillies that were growing at the bottom of our driveway, a perfect match I thought.
I picked and assembled these at the last minute so they stayed fresh and looked at their best.
Final thoughts
I received nothing but great feedback from the cake overall. Despite the amount of work involved, it’s a great display of competance to the new in-laws and a good way to impress people with your wide range of skills.
The structure held together very well. The quantity was bang on - with 150 guests, they ate through the middle layer and perhaps three-quarters of the bottom layer, with the top layer being reserved for the bride and groom to keep in the freezer for their anniversary. The taste was considerably better than my practice cake, so I was happy with the plastic containers used for storage. It was hard to spot any flaws under all the flowers, so only I knew they were there.
A big thanks to Kylie Frost-Mackey who loaned me a lot of gear that made this job easier, and gave me the heads-up on how to go about some of the more technical parts of this project.
All in all, very pleased with this result, though possibly not in a rush to do all this again 
Source: Madeira Wedding Cake Recipe
