Has anyone made a wedding cake? Like a tiered layer cake wedding cake? How did it go?

M

mariadnoca

Moderator
I've been wanting to try to make a tiered cake, it doesn't seem hard to me which makes me wonder what I don't know. You just make layer cakes stick dowels in them so they've got Support, stack them on top of each other and spackled the crack between the layers, right?

 
Maria, I've made several *grooms* cakes for informal weddings---

didn't want the stress producing a photo-worthy official "official wedding cake."

Here's a few things I noticed: each layer should be 3" to 4" larger in size. I made a 10" + 8" +6" tiered cake and there just wasn't enough room for fancy decorative touches. It's doable, but not my favorite look. I have a lovely book called "Wedding Cakes" by Mich Turner and hers are typically 6" + 9" + 12". For smaller cakes with ribbon or painted details only, she'll stack 4" + 6" + 8".

You build each cake on its own cakeboard and then set that on a 1/2" board that is covered with fondant matching the cake and ribbon matching either the fondant color (white/ivory/etc) or the wedding color scheme. That way you can either set the tier directly on the stabilizing dowels or on raised pillars if you want to put fresh flowers between layers or on fake fondant colored smaller tiers. That last is my least favorite. Something about the proportion never looks right to me (to have a larger cake tier sitting on top of a smaller one.

The birthday cakes you made for your neighbor twins were nicer than some bakery wedding cakes around here.

 
My grandmother and I made my wedding cake the day before my wedding

She had the cake layers made, soaked and glazed with apricot jam and tons of "french buttercream" made when I got there. The arthritis in her hands didn't allow her to frost or especially use a decorating bag any more, so that was my job. I had already made a whole bunch of tiny royal icing flowers to add to the decorations.

I swear I thought I would have a nervous breakdown before we finally finished. The buttercream tasted fantastic, but it was not at all stable, so the butter wanted to melt out of it from the heat of my hands on the bag. It also didn't really appreciate a 45 minute trip in a car on a very hot June day in Texas.

I swore never again. I didn't have ANYTHING ELSE to do on the day before my wedding:)

 
In addition to the great points others made, keep in mind the weight of the finished product

and how it will be transported and assembled at its final destination. That can be the demise of a wonderful and beautiful creation.

 
Rose Levy Beranbaum has a buttercream icing that she claims holds up in humid weather.

Let me know if you ever need it.

 
LisainLA is so right.!

I watched as a beautiful wedding cake made by a pro tottered and slipped over off the table after a guest dropped her phone onto one layer with trying to photograph it.
The top layer with bride and groom survived...the marriage didn't smileys/smile.gif
But the simple carrot cake six tier cake with cream cheese frosting I mead years age for a friends' wedding was fine.

 
Once assembled, whittle a dowel to a point and push thru center of cake

Use a rubber mallet if necessary to get that point into your cardboard cake base

 
And depending on how high the tiers, there may even be platforms within

the top tiers to support them.

 
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