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.

Wedding cakes can run into hundreds and even thousands of pounds.  If you are on a budget but you don’t want the challenge of making a cake either, then why not look at the high street?  Depending on the style of cake you want, you should be able to find a decent dessert for the price you have in mind.

Firstly – look at supermarkets.  All of the supermarkets, Morrisons, Asda, Tesco do special occasion cakes from £10-20.  Now that all of these supermarkets have a ‘finest’ collection they also tend to do well iced, tasty rich fruit cakes.  They will usually make these at different sizes too so you can layer them. 

Generally these cakes are well presented but come plain white meaning you will need to decorate them yourself.  You can do this easily!  On eBay, or Hobbycraft you can buy tier holders and a selection of glitters, cake gems and foliage.  On a white cake rather than going over board, you can always go for some very simple green foliage (that is safe to put on a cake!) and a wedding topper; a sugar figurine of a bride and groom or something else that you like.

Waitrose has high quality cakes that come iced and decorated; the same goes for Debenhams and John Lewis.  These cost more than supermarket cakes but look slightly more special and professional but cost less than a completely new cake.

Marks and Spencers is an excellent choice for cakes too; they have a special service where cakes can be made to order.  You can choose from sponge to fruit, to chocolate etc.  You can also choose the size and the design on the cake.  You can leave it white and plain to decorate yourself or ask them to add some sugar flowers.  The price is around £150 or a 3 tier cake but don’t dismiss their pre-packed range.  They have a larger selection than most of celebration sponge and fruit cakes that you can buy and stack yourself.

Selfridges and Harvey Nichols both have food halls and not surprisingly and excellent selection of pre-packed cakes.  Selfridges also has a made to order section.  Also I you are on a budget don’t dismiss the idea of using cupcakes or chocolate treats.  Use a tiered display area and cover the levels with cupcakes (homemade or store bought!) or chocolates and petit fours so guests can help themselves.

The wedding cake is the centerpiece of the reception. Fancy cakes from a professional are expensive… and the bigger the cake, the more you’ll pay. It’s easy to part with over £500 just for your wedding cake!

One important thing to consider here is that cake on display does not have to feed all of your guests. You can have an ornate, smaller cake for display and cutting purposes, and then have a sheet cake in the kitchen that can be cut and distributed to the guests.

Of course, you need to do your research by scouring wedding magazines and researching on the internet. Once you have found the cake for you, a cheap option that is often employed is to get someone you know who is good at baking to create a replica of your chosen cake.

There are a couple of good alternatives to the traditional wedding cake that you should also consider if you want to try to reduce the cost of your wedding cake. First, you could have a “cupcake” style arrangement. Here, individual ramekins are prepared and arranged in tiers. Each guest gets an individual ramekin. The advantage of these is that they are much easier for you make yourself (or for someone you know to make them) and they can also double up as dessert for the wedding breakfast (i.e. you do not have to pay your caterers for a separate dessert dish – it’s already covered by the cake).

Second, a non-traditional option that is becoming more popular is to have a wedding cake made out of cheese! When you buy cheese from a wholesaler, it usually comes in cylindrical slabs (of varying sizes, depending on the cheese). It is possible to arrange 3 or four of these cheese slabs on top of each other into something that vaguely resembles a tiered wedding cake. Again, this is a relatively cheap option and also has the added bonus of acting as a dessert or cheese course for the wedding breakfast.

OK, so here is the VIDEO that we recorded.

We recorded it anyway, even though Kaz had a bit of a bunged-up nose! Press play below to get started (you might need to be a lttle bit patient while it loads):

In the interview, we talk about our wedding “cakes”. Here is the one with the individual chocolate pots that doubled up as dessert (total cost £450, but we saved ~£5 per head on dessert):

And here is my choice - the infamous wedding cake made from cheese :) - we used this to feed those who were still hungry in the evening (with some crackers and Yorkshire pork pies). Total cost £175. But the alternative suggested by our caterers was a ~£5 - £10 per head finger buffet!).

As always, let us know what you think by asking us a question or leaving us a comment below. We really do appreciate your feedback.

Cheers,

Martin & Karen

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