Monday, August 1, 2011

Trial Run: The Cake


Have I told you yet that I'm making all the cakes for my sisters wedding?

Yes I said ALL... as in... more than one...


We saw this picture and fell in love with idea of a cake buffet.





Doesn't that just look yummy?


We thought that it would make things a bit easier to do too.  I mean one great big cake can easily turn into one giant mess with stacking tiers and sagging and whatnot.  Besides, we couldn't decide on one cake!  There are so many choices to make... let's just have them all!

So over the last couple of weeks I've started making some practice cakes to try out recipes and frosting techniques.



Here's my latest.


 
I'm really happy with the pretty little buttons.  I made each one by hand by pressing some of my favorite vintage buttons into frosting dough.  If you don't know about frosting dough you are missing out.  It's amazing and so simple... just add powdered sugar to your frosting until it turns into a ball of dough.  Then you can work with it just like playdoh!


 
 The inside is a strawberry flavored gradient.  To make it I just mixed up a box of strawberry cake mix.   I used a 1/2 cup measuring cup and poured 4 scoops (2 cups) into a cake pan.  Then I divided the rest of the batter amongst 4 bowls.  The first bowl got 3 scoops, the second got 2 scoops, the third got 1 scoop and the last got everything that I was able to scrape out of the bowl. 

Then I mixed up a box of yellow cake mix and divided the batter amongst the 4 bowls.  The first bowl got 1 scoop, the second got 2, the third got 3 and the fourth got everything left.  I played with a little bit to make sure they were all pretty even and poured them into the cake pans.



When they were finished baking I leveled and cut each cake in half. I was worried the cake would be too tall and hard to manage.  So in the end I had two pretty cakes!


Oh and if you noticed that the frosting is about to drip off the cake you're absolutely right!  Last night when I mixed it up, I didn't have any real butter.  I knew I would make sure to have it when making the actual wedding cakes but this was just a test cake so I didn't think it would make that big of a difference.  I was dead wrong. It was runny and really hard to work with but my kiddos didn't seem to mind!



But all this practicing and I still haven't decided how to do the cakes for the wedding.  I know I'll start baking and freezing them now but when should I put them together and frost them?  The day before?  The day of?  Have you done something like this before?  Have any pointers for me?

Can you tell I'm a little scared?!




2 comments:

  1. Most of the time, when you go to a big baker for a wedding cake (or cakes!) they will bake the cake a few days before, freeze it, and then the day of put it all together and decorate it. I loove those buttons! So stinking cute! I have never heard of frosting dough but it sure sounds like it tastes better than fondant. are you going to cover the cake in buttons or just do a small section like that? You could probably even make the buttons a few days ahead of time and let them dry a day or two (test it out and see how they dry first, cause if they dry nasty, you would want to just make them fresh) that way the day of, you just have to stack, fill and ice the cakes then place the buttons. You are a brave brave woman!!

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  2. GOOOD job! People are already pinning your cakes on Pinterest!! You'll do great!!

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