Wedding 2/3

Hello!!! So it's another month and another wedding. This time it is the wedding of one of my oldest and dearest friends Antoinette.

The weekend was beyond beautiful & once again, I had the honour of making the wedding cake. 

Unlike my usual wedding cake orders, the only guidance I had was to keep it simple. There was no tasting, no design conversations, very very little. In fact, I don't think I even saw a picture of what she might like. It was perfect! I got to make the cake that I would love to have! :)

Each tier had four layers of vanilla cake sandwiched together with strawberry, blueberry & raspberry flavoured buttercream icing. 

Flavouring buttercream with real fruit is the best thing ever ever ever. You get the flavour and colour naturally, along with tiny pieces of fruit to balance out all the sugar you're eating!

Vanilla Butter Cakes (adapted from Amy Atlas's Sweet Design Book)
Make about 8 quantities for a very deep 6", 8" & 10" cake.

1 stick/ ½ cup (114g) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 vanilla pod (the seeds from)
2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
1. Adjust oven to 350oF/ 180oC/ Gas Mark 4. Beat together the butter & sugar until they are light & fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add one egg at a time along with the vanilla until they are thoroughly combined.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl. With the mixer on a slow speed add the flour mixture alternatively with the milk. Beat for about 3 minutes until the cake batter is smooth.
3. Divide the cupcake mixture between the cupcake cases and bake for about 17-20 minutes minutes until the a skewer entered into the centre comes out clean.
4. Leave to cool fully before topping with a generous amount of buttercream.

Strawberry Buttercream Icing

200g fresh strawberries (or raspberries or blueberries) crushed

500g icing sugar sifted

185g soft unsalted butter

Cream together the butter and icing sugar until soft and fluffy. Slowly add the crushed fruit until fully mixed.

(The fruit can make the icing a bit watery, especially the blueberries & raspberries so you don't need to crush it as much & keep a close eye as you're adding it).

You might be interested to know that I caught the bouquet AGAIN!!! Anyone would think I planned it! 

Peace & Love

xx

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Wedding 1/3!!!

The beautiful couple

Yesterday was the first of 3 weddings that I am baking for this year, the union of the beautiful couple, Tatiana & Arne. It was a wonderful day, the weather behaved itself and the drinks flowed! 

The cake!

Most importantly for me, the cake went well on the day! I had to change the design because of the heat. Originally the ruffles were meant to be made out of buttercream but on a test run, the buttercream melted and I had to make the ruffles out of fondant instead to prevent a destroyed cake and a day spent panicking about it.

Fun Times

Baking for a wedding is part labour of love and part heart-attack inducing. I don't think there is a cake more important than a wedding cake. I usually have at least two meetings before finalising the design to go through ideas. Then there's the tasting session & the trial run & finally once you start making the cake, there is always something crazy that happens (like a heatwave) and you have to think on your feet when you've probably had about 3 hours sleep for the last 48 hours.

More cake

This was no exception. Despite being the first person to arrive at the hall, I had to wait for everyone to set up before I could put the cake together and ended up missing the beautiful ceremony. On the upside, there was Pisco (Chilean tequila style alcohol) and I caught the bouquet of flowers - so I'm pretty much guaranteed happily ever after... :)

I've can exhale for another month until my next wedding. In the meantime I shall be thinking who is going to be the lucky one to take my hand in marriage! :)

Cake cutting time...

Peace & Love

xx

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I Love Love....

The wedding cake

Today was the wedding of my cousin Melissa and her husband Northy. At the best of times making a wedding cake is scary, but delivering a stacked cake over 160 miles across England, family in tow, takes anxiety to a whole other level! 

Setting up the cake (in my almost-wedding outfit!)

In fact I was so focussed on getting the cake there in one piece, that I forgot to bring my wedding outfit with me!!! Thank God for my sister who had some supplies; jeans, trainers and a dirty apron are not a good look at a wedding! Once I'd set up the cake & gotten changed, I was finally able to relax in the beauty of the day. 

The beautiful couple...

I would describe myself as a hopelessly romantic, wannabe cynic: I just love love. After my failed attempts at happily ever after, I often wonder why people put themselves through it & the cynic in me gains strength. Then I come to a day like this & see the love in their eyes and the hope in their hearts & I'm a blubbering mess!

So happy :)

To be fair, anyone who knows me, knows that I cry at everything. It's a running joke in my family & borderline ridiculous, but I make no apologies: I feel, therefore I cry!

So whilst I don't know what the future will bring for me on the love front, for now, I know that I am happy for this beautiful couple and I wish them all good things! 

Below are some of my favourite snaps of the day, I think you will agree that it was beautiful! 

Flower Girls

Me (far right) & some of the family :)

My niece and nephew playing in the beautiful grounds...

I pretty much stalked this baby, too cute :)

My mum and Uncle aka the Father of the Bride 

Cutting the cake.

 Peace & Love

xx

ps for those interested, the tiers are; bottom - Red Velvet; middle - Lemon and top - Chocolate Truffle. There was also a rum cake for good measure :).

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