Did anyone make their own wedding cake?

[biglips]

and was it easy than you thought or not?, as i would like to give it a go for our wedding. Never done it before and i used to do interior decorating so ive got a good eye detail.


thanks

[DingDongMerrilyAsCheese]

I'm mkaing ours but not decorating it and I'm only doing it because my lovely fiance has said that's the only thing he wants, for the rest of it I can have what I want.

I'm using the delia Christmas cake recipe (which funnily enough I use for Christmas cake) and it is as easy a pie.

[oranges]

my mum made mine. Basic fruit cake recipe with marzipan icing.

[biglips]

can you buy a sheet of ready made marpizan? or gotta make it from scratch?

[melodyangel]

Buy ready made marzipan you may even be able to get it ready rolled. Then google "how to marzipan a cake". It really isn't hard I know I just did my first one tonight and it looks ok. Leave it a week before you add the icing as it the marzipan can colour it, apparently.

Good luck and hope all the wedding plans are going well.

[nickelbabysnatcher]

you can buy marzipan ready rolled, and icing too.
and you can buy sugar flowers and things!

good luck - sounds really hard to me!

[rockinhippy]

Yes, & it was pretty easy (designer of sorts like yourself, so do have an eye/steady hand for it too)

I would avoid the stilts though, I made mine with those & nearly had a disaster when the cake was taken to the venue, I thought it was very stable, so was surprised, though not 100% certain it wasn't as could of been the Woman who insisted on carrying it(but thats another story) but just incase worth keeping in mind

if you've not done it before, I too would recommend buying ready made icing & marzipan, though wouldn't bother with the ready rolled stuff, its easy enough to roll out & you get the size you want.... warmed honey with a little added alcohol (brandy rum etc) painted over cake & then marzipan will secure the icing to cake etc

also don't bother with buying the ready made coloured sugar craft icing, make your own by adding a few drops of colour into a bit of icing dough & knead it in....

keep well wrapped in cling film of food bags though.......you can even marble icing this way too....my own cake was lavender/white marbled icing with purple & silver metalic leaf design & real sugared roses

You can buy some nice shape cutters ATM from TKMax if you look in the kitchen bit, or any good kitchenware supplier......steralised clay tools are good to use too, as are good quality paint brushes & you make icing paints by mixing colour with icing sugar until you get a thin paste & then just use as paint

& edible glitters dusted over your finished cake look great & will hide a multitude of sins

& done be surprised if you enjoy it so much, you become addicted to sugar craft

[pepperonipizza]

If you're still looking for advice, I would recommend buying ready iced cakes (m and s, or supermarkets do them) and piling them up on top of each other, then asking your florist to make fresh flower decoration to dress the cakes with. Icing cakes yourself is really tricky, and it takes time and loads of patience. The ready made ones will look just as good tbh (and I am speaking as someone who regularly makes wedding cakes for friends). HTH.

[sevendwarves]

I made mine and if you're not new to baking it isn't that difficult tbh. I got the tins in John Lewis and including ingredients made a 3-tier cake for just under £100.

The only thing I would recommend is to buy an extra-long rolling pin (about £25 on eBay) to make icing the bottom tier easier. You will also need to roll out the icing on the dinner table, out kitchen worktops weren't wide enough!

If the icing isn't perfect, stack the cakes straight on top of each other (ie without pillars) and stick a ribbon round the outside, flowers on top and nobody will even notice!

[Thinkofanumber]

I made mine. I made a three tier cake for about £40 including the tins (£4.99 for the 3 in Home Bargains!).
I used Delia's Christmas cake recipe.
I didn't decorate it though as I had a friend do it for me and I couldn't have done what I wanted.
Picture on profile .

[melodyangel]

Wow Thinkofanumber what a fantastic cake!

[GraceK]

We did ours & am about to make my parents' god-daughter's one in April. But it isn't a normal wedding cake - tis our family's chocolate cake recipe published on H2G2 here. You can freeze it with the icing on so can be done in advance.

A friend painted ours with metallic paints and I'm decorating the god-daughter's with white & pink edible glitter from Hobby Craft - it looks great against a chocolate background.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

[oohlaalaa]

I'm making ours, fruitcake, but getting it professionally decorated.

[Knickerbockerglorybuns]

My sister made her own wedding cake. She's not a professional or anything, but it looked and tasted good and saved her over £400. She got the recipe from a book on cakes.

[ceres]

i made ours. it was a three tier, stacked (no pillars) cake.

the bottom layer was fruit cake, the middle was chocolate biscuit cake and the top was madeira. i kept the icing fiarly simple and decorated it with fresh flowers.

[IloveJudgeJudy]

My mother made ours. It made her start going to Sugarcraft Guild which has led to a great new interest for her.

DH and I had to sort through all the dried fruit, though.

[melodyangel]

Making mine at the mo. Two tiers done, one to go!

[mummylin2495]

I have just made a three tier cake for my niece.someone else will ice it as im not good enough to do that,it smells lovely.You can buy ready made icing which you just have to roll out and im sure you can get little flowers etc already made.Mine smells as if it will knock people out for the count at the moment with all the alcohol in it.I made the mixture for all three together and they took 11 hrs to cook all three.The fruit was soaking in the liquid for a complete week before all the other ingredients were added.The thing ,is i detest cake like this !

[whackamole]

I'm thinking about it but will probably just buy some round cakes from Tesco and decorate with flowers. i like making cakes but i could probably do without that stress a couple of days before the big day!

[melodyangel]

You can make fruit cakes ages before the big day or other cakes up to a month before and then freeze them uniced and well wrapped.

[Mouseybrown]

We had 120 cupcakes in six flavours which we made and iced between us (me and dh) we bought a small iced fruitcake from M&S for the top tier of the cupcake stand so we had something to cut for the photos, although cutting a cupcake with a huge knife might have been funnier.