Piece of Cake

I did it. It's done. And it looked good! It was such a relief to finish. I tried hard not to stress out but I couldn't help it. Let me take you through the creation of my brother's wedding cake. . .
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A few days before the wedding, I pinned down my brother and almost-sister-in-law to ask some questions, trying to nail down the last couple of details: 3 slanted layers, maybe a topper, maybe not.
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I finished making flowers, adding purple to the yellow, red and blue: I also made some leaves to act as filler just in case my sister was right when she said, "I don't think you have enough flowers.":

I then got the styrofoam discs for the bottom two layers and baked the top layer. The bride requested chocolate cake, so I looked up recipes and made Martha Stewart's Chocolate Cake. It's the first cake from scratch that has worked for me! And it was an easy recipe too. Next, I made my husband cut the styrofoam {I can't stand that stuff. The sound it makes when it rubs against anything. . .ughhhh! Gives me chills and makes my teeth ache.}

It made the most horrifying noise. I could barely stay long enough to take a picture. So, thanks again, Grant! The wedding was going to be Monday evening, so I decided to put the cake together in the morning, not really the smartest idea, but, thankfully it worked. Well, that morning came and I was trying hard not to freak out. My mind was racing through all of the worst-case scenarios it could think of: too few flowers, melting icing, cake layers sliding off of each other, crumbs in the icing, etc., etc. I was so nervous that I kept breaking flowers, which made me more flustered, leading to more dead flowers. . .anyway, my sister helped me by putting the finishing touches on the purple flowers. I moved on to cutting the cake top. My brother told me when I got there that they didn't have a topper. Now the pressure to have a level top layer was gone. So I cut the cake and put the layers together:

Then it was time to frost. I made the Creamy White frosting from my Homemade Oreo post. I tripled it and had just enough. Lucky for me, they {the bride and groom} didn't care if the frosting was smooth or not, so I didn't even try and I actually like what I did better:
For the cake layer, I preped it by freezing it for a few minutes and then doing a thin 'crumb layer' and freezing that again, before doing the final icing layer. So there were no black flecks to be found. Finally, the moment of truth! Time for the flowers:

I started at the top and I have to say that once I put those few on top all of the anxiety went away. My sister and I then finished putting the flowers on. We didn't go all of the way round the cake, but we could have {there were tons of flowers leftover} and looking back, we maybe should have. We were running short on time, I think it was past 5pm and the wedding was scheduled for 6. It still turned out fabulous:

Sweet Peas

I've been too busy the past couple of weeks to make any flowers. Yesterday, I finally made some headway. Behold, the sweet peas:Once I got the hang of them, they were easier than the roses and faster too. I really need to get cracking though. I have less than a week to finish.
I'm planning on doing one more style of flower, in purple fondant. And then I'll just need to make sure I made enough of each. . .

A Wedding Cake Update & Casualty

Since my last (and only) post on my brother's wedding cake, I've learned what they really want for their cake. A 2-3 layer chocolate cake, with white (!) buttercream frosting and colorful fondant flowers going down the side. Kind of a big change from original black and white idea, but funner for me. First, I colored some fondant: And last night, I started making the beginnings of 2 flowers:Tiny, blue forget-me-nots and red roses. This morning I put the finishing dot of royal icing onto the forget-me-nots and I was able to make one full rose and one rosebud:I thought I'd get a lot further along with the roses, but this isn't the same method I used for my sister's cake and it takes a lot longer. I'm hoping it'll speed up once I know what I'm doing. Sadly, I lost a little flower:

But one isn't all that bad.

Wedding Cakes Are On My Mind

Three years ago, I (with lots of help from my mom and older sister) made this wedding cake for another sister. It turned out really well, despite our having no clue. We made all of the obvious mistakes: cooking and decorating the cake the day before the wedding, having the butter cream frosting and fondant soften too much in the heat of the kitchen, etc. About the only thing that went without a hitch were the sugar roses. I spent a solid week making dozens of them with fondant and they turned out beautiful.
I was also pregnant at the time and very emotional. When the fondant was tearing and the frosting was melting, I was freaking out. Around this time, (9 or 10 pm the night before the big day) while I was contemplating throwing the cake to the floor and crying, my older sister came up with the idea of putting the ribbon around each layer to hide the not-so-smooth areas. It worked and we liked the color it added.

I'm pretty sure I told myself that I'd never do something like that again. Three years does a lot to soften memories. My older brother is getting married in the middle of August and my mom and I offered to make their cake. They don't really have any preferences other than having it be black and white, and having room for the topper that they are molding out of clay. I'll be keeping you posted on what happens. . . .