After 2 1/2 years of decorating cakes, I was recently asked to do my first wedding cake! (Thank you, Joy Stahmann) Here's the thing about Joy...she lives in Wisconsin. Here's the thing about me...I live in Michigan. How does one create a (hopefully) beautiful wedding cake and deliver it six hours away without ruining it? Ha. I have no idea.
I came up with a plan. Make the sheet cakes at home, in MI. Bake the wedding cake in MI and frost it in WI. Scary? Yes. Easy? No. But it was the only solution.
I have a problem with making stories too long, so let me try to sum up. I spent Wednesday night and Thursday morning baking all the cakes. My roadtrip buddy (Katie) and I finally hit the road at 5:30pm. The trunk was full of suitcases and cake. More drama for our situation...Katie had a gimp hand. She dropped a 2X4 on it while working. Even more drama, it started pouring rain and the temp was floating just above freezing. Scary? Yes. Fun and interesting road trip? Oh heck yes :)
I decided not to even check the sheet cakes until we made it to Fond du Lac. No point in stressing myself out until there was a chance to do something about it. I opened the first box...and saw and a huge glob of frosting was stuck to the box. AHHHHHHHH!!
If you know me, you know that my normal reaction is freak out and focus on ever single bad outcome. Strangely, I was calm as a cucumber. I took the cakes up to our room, filled in the hole, and smoothed it best I could. There was so much calmness going on, I surprised even myself :)
There. I fixed the sheet cake. Now to the scary stuff. Time to start the wedding cake. It's a big deal, right? It's basically the centerpiece for the reception. People see it. They talk about it. And more importantly...Joy has to love it. It's her special day and everything should be perfect. So here I am, sitting in a hotel room, about to start a humongous project. At some point, you just have to stop freaking out and just go for it!
After doing a crumb coat, it helps to refrigerate the cake and let the layer harden enough before icing the rest of the cake. After taking out a few of the hotel mini-fridge shelves, I was able to fit the cake in there. Sadly, fridge never made it cold enough and a few of the crumbs spread around. Sigh...yes, my heart did break a bit. But there was nothing I could do for it. I moved onto the next step...dowels! This concept has scared me for a long time. I've never attempted a two tiered cake because of the dowels. I have big enough problems hanging pictures straight on the wall...how am I supposed to put dowels straight into the cake? Nerve wracking? Yes.
Even scarier though...putting the six inch on top of the ten inch cake.
Cake stacked...done. Next step? The flowers and cake topper. And here is the final product:
Was it my best work ever? No. But guess what! I did my very first wedding cake! And I took it all the way to Wisconsin! And I frosted it in a hotel! And every last bit of cake was eaten.
But even more importantly, Joy and Jason were happy with it. So hey...I'm proud of it :)
I want to thank Katie for being a great friend and travel buddy. Thanks for putting up with my craziness! I also want to thank Joy for a great opportunity. I love you both!
