Wedding Cakes - A Labor of Love

When people look at wedding cakes, they (hopefully) see the dainty flowers, swirly icing, crisp edges, maybe even imagine what it will taste like.

What people usually don't see are the countless hours, weeks of planning, tears shed, baking snafus, flowers that shattered, illness, and the numerous other ways Murphy's Law tried to sabotage the entire project.

I choose to believe that prayers were answered in the completion of this cake for our dear friends Tim and Stephanie. It was such a joy to celebrate their coming together as husband and wife with them, and the fact that the cake was truly a labor of love made the presentation that much more rewarding.

Congrats, Mr & Mrs Tim and Stephanie Strader!

I'm filling a little pleased with myself...

(Insert your groan here for the horrible pun, I couldn't resist.)

So, this weekend is kind of a big deal. One of Jason's best friends is getting married to a fantastic girl, and we couldn't be more excited for them. We are honored to be asked to join the revelry, as well as doing our best to make this celebration a really special day... the beginning of a new and wonderful season of marriage. Hooray!

As a wedding gift, I offered to make the wedding cake... my first three tier (gulp) and my first try working with gum paste (double gulp). So far it's been going well, mostly due to the fact that I allotted every evening this week to preparation. Tonight was cake baking and filling making night.

The bride and groom decided on raspberry buttercream filling in the bottom layer and honey cinnamon buttercream filling in the middle layer. I was pretty confident that both of these recipes would be tasty and bring a little extra oomph to the cake... but MAN! I am seriously impressed with the subtle flavors and the wonderful creaminess of these fillings! So much so that I am designating an entire blog post about them. Try them - you will understand why.

Raspberry Buttercream Icing
**Note: You can substitute butter for the shortening - it will be more natural and taste even better. However, if you are needing it to be able to firm up and hold its shape you will need to at least use 1/4 cup shortening. Also, I increased the amount of raspberry preserves to 1/2 cup for a little more flavor (I used Smucker's Simply Fruit preserves)

Honey Cinnamon Frosting
**Note: Double the cinnamon - you won't regret it. Also, you can increase the confectioner's sugar up to 2 cups if you need more stability, though it will make it significantly sweeter.

More wedding related posts coming soon!