DIY Wedding Cakes

Wedding cakes can cost an arm and a leg – if you want to save money and produce a cake that was made with time and love then why not roll your sleeves up and give it a go?  You don’t need to be a master baker as long as you can follow instructions.  It also means that you can bake something that really suits your own taste and your guests’; especially if you have people who are vegetarian or vegans to feed.  Some wedding cakes are also less than perfect even if you have paid for them – thick, week old icing and dry centres.  Baking your own cake means that it will be fresh!

Consider making three tiers of cakes – choose from your favourite - chocolate, sponge, fruit, carrot, black forest etc.  Recipes can easily be found on the internet for these kinds of cakes; I recommend Magnolia’s Cookbook which is from a famous New York Bakery.  The recipes are sweet and indulgent and just want you need for a wedding cake.
Here are some useful items to buy:

• Cake tins (square or round)
• Icing kit (with nozzles, paper bags, coupler)
• Foil
• Greaseproof paper
• Cake Boards
• Pillars for tiers
• Decorations and toppers
• Palette Knife
• Rolling Pin
• Spatulas
• Electric Mixer
• Food colouring
• Vanilla Essence
• Timer

Don’t forget to play with the proportions.  You may need to double or triple the portions. Therefore make the cake beforehand and do a trial run to make sure everything is ok!  Fruit cake lasts a lot longer so can be made well in advance whereas sponge is nicer when fresh.

You can ice the cake a week in advance and store it in the fridge.  Remember with icing you can use royal icing or marzipan which keeps well and works best on a fruit cake as it is quite heavy.  If you are making a sponge, a very popular type of icing is butter cream.  This creates a creamy, super rich but soft icing that can be coloured.  Decorate using an icing bag or a spatula.  After a while the icing will dry and set, making it easier to carry round but try to decorate butter cream whilst it is still a little wet.

Don’t forget! The trial run is very important when making a DIY cake!  Luckily if you start early enough there’s no reason why you can’t make the ideal cake.

 

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