So I did something really amazing last week, something that I thought that I would NEVER do. I baked, frosted, transported, constructed, presented and served a wedding cake. This wasn’t any ordinary wedding cake, this was an apple spice cake with apple butter filling, cream cheese frosting and a caramel drizzle.
This cake was special to me because it was for my Stepson and new Daughter in law. The berries and apples are all handmade candy constructed out of marzipan and gum paste.
The bride had the following requests: Apples, Cream Cheese, Minimalist Frosting, Berries, Greenery and some sort of drizzle. She sent me the following photos for inspiration:
This is my first wedding cake endeavor so I knew that my work would be cut out for me. After trial and error and about 25 baked cakes total, I would like to give a quick how-to on the method to for making this cake.
The wedding was scheduled for a Saturday so I began on Monday morning, bright and early baking the cake. This is a traditional spice cake recipe, use whichever one appeals most to your taste. I can say that after trying 4 recipes, including homemade, Betty Crocker has the highest rated in both taste and moistness in my family. This cake required the following:
2 – 12″ rounds (4 cake recipes)
2 – 8″ rounds (2 cake recipes)
2 – 4″ rounds (1 cake recipe)
That’s 7 cake batter recipes total)
I overfilled the pans before baking so that I could have perfect 2″ cakes for my layers. I sliced the tops off with a bread knife and chilled the cakes in the refrigerator until all of them were cool.
I made a whopping 7 batches of frosting for this cake with the following super simple recipe:
1 stick butter
1 bar cream cheese
1 two lb bag of Domino powdered sugar
1 tbls vanilla
Once all of the cakes were cooled, I lightly brushed apple butter on each layer. At this point I began assembling the cake. I inserted Wilton pillars into the 12″ layers and the 8″ layers at this for added stability later.
After a solid coat of frosting….I placed the cakes in the freezer uncovered for 3 hours. After 3 hours, I wrapped in plastic wrap and left them until Friday.
On Friday afternoon I removed them from the freezer to a cool and quiet area where they could slowly thaw.
When Saturday morning arrived I transported these little gems an hour down the interstate to their final destination. I assembled the cake about 2 hours before the wedding. I first stacked all of the cakes placing a cardboard base below the 8″ and 4″ layers on the pillars that had been inserted before freezing.
I then added the caramel drizzle. Any caramel recipe will do or even a jar of pre-made caramel sauce in the ice-cream section (so long as it is thick and not runny and you don’t warm it up!)
All of the blackberries and raspberries were made of gum paste and candy beads, the blueberries were hand sculpted in gum paste and the apples were made of marzipan with a clove stem.
I used sage from my herb garden to fill in the extra space and add the greenery my daughter-in-law desired.
In the end….it probably could have been a little more perfect and I probably made several rookie mistakes along the way. However, the cake was moist and both the bride & groom and guests were pleased.
Let me know what you think! If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a line.
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