Back at the end of May, I was lucky enough to be celebrating the coming wedding of two of my best friends from college, C and I. These two are getting married this July on Block Island, and, originally, I was going to be making the wedding cake with another friend, S. As fate would have it, C's long lost relatives have done all of the family's cakes and emerged from the wood-work gushing about how excited they were to be making C and I's wedding! In all honestly, I was a bit relieved. I was excited by the prospect of making a wedding cake for two people that I dearly love, but I was also slightly terrified! Having never stacked a cake before in my life, that alone was enough to have me quivering in my boots. Add on top of that, baking in an unfamiliar kitchen with an unfamiliar oven and no stand mixer? Recipe for disaster. So, while I was slightly disappointed to not be able to contribute in that way to the wedding, I was very relieved. My consolation prize was baking the cake for C and I's wedding brunch at C's mother's house. I headed to Boston for the weekend with a bag packed full of decorating tips, cake pans, and a hand mixer. The brunch was scheduled for Sunday morning, so S and I turned Saturday into a bake-a-thon. We needed cake to feed 70-80 people, and we decided on a two tier cake with cupcakes making up the difference. The bottom tier was a 10 inch lemon cake filled with raspberry swiss meringue buttercream and raspberry preserves.
As you can see, we tried to turn out the top cake layer prematurely, so it got a little funky. Good thing these cakes were destined for a slathering of frosting! Frosting covers all manner of sins in the cake world. As long as it tastes good! For the top tier, we decided on a 6 inch chocolate cake filled with the same raspberry buttercream.
For the cupcakes, we did a combination of chocolate and lemon cupcakes with vanilla, lemon (not on the chocolate cakes), and raspberry buttercream. We even hid surprise raspberries in the centers of some of the cupcakes. We tried to get C to eat one of these surprise cupcakes, but she didn't even trust us enough to think that it would be a pleasant surprise! Do I not seem trustworthy? Just because I like to jump out at people when they least suspect it. As if I would taint one of my baked goods with something unsavory. People who do such things will burn in a special circle of Hell. Dante just forgot about those types of sinners. That is a sin that not even the best frosting can cover.
It being a spring event, we wanted to make the cake and cupcakes very festive, so we piped frosting of all different colors onto the cakes. It took us all day, but the cake turned out really well. I was extremely nervous about the stacking process, but S and I managed to stack the cake with few difficulties. It even survived a 45 minute car ride from bake site to party site (on my lap), as well as overnight storage! But man was it heavy! The elevator trip from S's apartment to the car gave me quite the arm workout. It didn't help that these two guys didn't let us on the first elevator going down. Chivalry must really be dead.
All in all, I'd say that it was a grand success. The guests seemed to genuinely enjoy the cake, and I hope that C and I loved it. Things baked with love always taste better, after all.
Current Music: "Cooling of the Embers"~Missy Higgins~The Ol' Razzle Dazzle
1 comment:
Great Post, Becca! What a cake it was, indeed! Of course we all loved it--it was beautiful and delicious, and you could tell it made with an extra serving of love.
And just so you know, the "surprise" cupcakes were my favorite! Sorry to resist them at first :) haha
C
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