Wedding cake

I made a wedding cake!! Ok… It was actually 7 months ago, but still! It was exhausting, stressful, time consuming, and so amazingly worth it.

The groom is one of my good friends from grad school and his wife is a doctor who makes her own quilts – talk about talented! Knowing the groom and his desire for perfection when it comes to food and the bride’s amazing artistic talents, I was nervous… to say the least… but incredibly flattered that they would even ask me to make the cake.

The wedding was outdoors and the bride had her hand in everything, making it a beautiful, vintage-y wedding where my cake could fit in. I told them that two levels was my max, but that I’d be willing to make multiple cakes, and they were completely flexible with me. The florist provided the flowers to decorate the cake, so all I had to do was bring three white cakes. Simple really.

I had made the main cake for a birthday party, and the bride and groom requested it specifically: a lemon infused white cake with strawberries and a white chocolate icing in between the layers. The whole cake was supposed to be covered in the white chocolate icing, but the night before when the icing wasn’t coming out like I wanted, I made a last second decision to still use the icing for the filling between the layers but made a cream cheese icing to cover the cake. Everyone loves cream cheese icing (unless you are crazy), so I knew it would work out.

The other two side cakes included a chocolate chip spice cake and a chocolate cake with a raspberry and chocolate filling. The transportation of the cakes went fairly well. I bought some boxes for each cake and planned on assembling the two layer cake when I arrived. I cringed on every bump, especially when I reached the farm and I felt like I needed a 4-wheeler just to reach the venue. Fortunately the cakes were intact and unharmed when I arrived. I went into the house to assemble the cakes and the whole wedding party was there! Talk about stressful. Everyone was going to be watching me ungracefully place one cake on top of another. Half an hour later they were together, the flower was on top, and I was done.

The cutting of the cake is always my favorite part at a wedding reception, and this one was extra special. Especially when I saw the bride whisper “this is good” after she took a bite. It wasn’t the fanciest wedding cake, or the most professionally done, but if it tasted good, at least I could sleep that night.

*i made this cake last week for a work bake-off and lost. Again. I guess it wasn’t that good….

So, after 7 long months, I’ll tell you how I made the cake.

I found this beautiful white cake on tastespotting.com.
The directions are long and the author does a great job describing what to do. At the end of making the cake, fold in lemon zest from two lemons and then bake the cake.

When the cake is done, you can store it in the freezer for a day, which makes it easier to level. When you are ready to assemble the cake, cut up 1 pint of strawberries and store in lemon juice from two lemons and 1 tsp. sugar.

Prepare the white chocolate icing, as the instructions say. It is important to just continue beating the icing until cool and fluffy. I gave up the first two times and the icing never came together.

Place one layer down and pour on 1/3 of strawberry, lemon juice and then place 1/2 the strawberries on top of the cake.