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How To Make A Wedding Cake

Making a wedding cake is not impossible. If you have some baking experience and time to experiment, you may find that you can produce the same quality cake as a very expensive wedding cake designer.

The most important thing to remember when you decide to bake the cake for your own wedding or to gift a friend with a wedding cake, is that you'll have to make at least one trial run before the wedding day.

Start with the design

Before you begin baking, you'll need to know what end result you want. Will you be going for a traditional multi-tiered white frosting wedding cake or will you want a tower of cupcakes or individual table cakes with a smaller "cutting' layer?

Go through the designs online and in bridal magazines until you find one that is just right.

What size cake do you need?

Click on the link and use the charts to find out how much cake you'll need to serve at the wedding.

Gather your tools and ingredients

Baking and decorating a wedding cake may require tools that you don't have handy. Piping tips and fondant smoothers are generally needed for the frosting. Wooden dowels and cardboard bases for the tiers are another unusual item.

If you plan on a special filling, coloring or flavor for the cake or frosting decorations, make sure you have all the ingredients together before you get started.

Testing 1... 2... 3...

Practice makes perfect and this is especially true when it comes to something as important as a wedding cake.

If you plan on adding a basket weave design for the frosting, for example, make a few cakes for other occasions - like your family dinner - where you use the technique. After you practice on cakes where mistakes don't matter, you'll be an expert when it comes to decorating the wedding cake.

Any new baking or cake decorating skills should be practiced before you attempt them on the wedding cake.

After you feel ready to tackle the actual cake, it's time for a dry run. Go through the whole process from baking each piece and assembling the cake to adding the decorations.

It may seem a bit expensive and a waste of good ingredients, but if there's gong to be a problem... it's better to find out and figure out a solution on a practice cake!

The Bride and the cake

If you plan on baking your own cake for your wedding, have a reliable friend work with you. The last thing you need on your wedding day is to worry about getting the cake to the reception and setting it up.

If you've planned ahead, someone else can take care of these details while you are getting dressed for the big event! If you know the person has gone through a practice run, you can just relax and worry about remembering your vows.

Recipes and Advice

You'll soon discover that making a professional looking designer wedding cake really is not impossible, it just takes a bit of practice...

When the guests at the wedding find out who made the cake, they'll be amazed at your new talent. Be prepared for requests for cakes from other friends and family!

The sites below are good resources for cake ideas that come complete with recipes and instructions. Once you decide on which cake you'll make, get busy baking and have a great time.

Building Tiered Cakes - Wilton is a name that the best bakers know and trust. In their design section you can find pages of wedding cake ideas with links to the recipes. Check out the rest of the info on transporting, saving and more...

Pastry Wiz Wedding Cakes and more.. - From simple to complex, you'll find it all here. Choosing a cake, recipes with baking tips and advice on how to assemble the cake when you're done. Fondants and Pastillage, pipe a basket weave wedding cake, drop strings and more with step by step instructions and plenty of pictures. They have a recipe for gum based rolled fondant if you plan on making some for your cake frosting...

How to Make Your Own Wedding Cake - This series is a very easy to follow, step by step guide that takes you from deciding that you really can make your own through assembly and decoration.

Decorating a Wedding Cake - All Recipes.com not only has wedding cake recipes, they also have some excellent articles on decorating and putting the cake together...

also see our recipe file -> Wedding Cupcake Recipe

Other Wedding Resources Online

also see -> Wedding Cakes | Table Settings | Toasts | Tuxedos

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