1 week to perfect a wedding cake. Help!

[ChaosMoon]

Hello lovely people.

My BIL and soon to be SIL get married in a week. It's taken a year to confirm flavours and sizes. A 10" and 6" lemon drizzle (middle layer is one I have a recipe for, thank god). It's a naked cake, so the bake has to be perfect.

When I've done wedding cakes before (3 including my own) I've happily done the calculations to adapt the recipes to the right shape and size tins, and done lots of practice bakes. However, they've not only given me very little time, but I also have a 4 month old DD who does not like to lose me to the kitchen!

So I'm a little stressed.

Does anyone have a fool proof lemon / lemon drizzle recipe for a 10" and/or 6" round tin? If you do, you will be both a wedding and sanity saver!

Thanks in advance!

Foolproof is a tough ask! But generally 6 inch is a 3 egg, 6 ounce flour, butter, sugar recipe then add baking powder, lemon zest, lemon juice and for extra lemon punch lemon extract (I use Morrison's own brand). For the 10 inch pans everything is doubled. I cook on gas and gas mark 5, with the larger one 25 mins, the smaller 16 mins but every oven is unique, I sometimes have had to cover or reduce the temp for the larger one to prevent it being too dark before the inside is cooked. I normally go for 8 inch so sorry it's a bit vague. I would try and practice if you can. By the way stork or other baking margarine works fine and can produce a lighter cake than real butter. For the drizzle I heat a little water to dissolve sugar then add lemon juice (concentrate from a bottle is fine) prick cake with a cocktail stick then drizzle over the sugar and lemon mix

Personally I would do 200g flour/sugar/butter 4 eggs for the 6” and 600g + 12 for the 10 and load it with zest and a good quality flavouring (I bake each cake in 2 half’s personally, so it would be half the recipe, twice)

Naked cakes are the easiest kind I personally think - much more forgiving as not supposed to look perfect!

Oh yeah forgot the baking powder!

Of course! Thank you both so much. I'll definitely try out the Morrisons lemon extract and I'll do as many practice runs as I can squeeze in.

@Relationshipsajoke, I used to agree, but everything I try at the moment seems to dome weirdly and otherwise misbehave. In theory this is much simpler than ones I've done before, but I'm beginning to think that I forgot how to bake while pregnant!

This is my standard recipe, but you might like to add extra lemon flavour to the mix, depending on your preferences.

Lemon Drizzle cake.
(Makes 1x 2lb loaf tin)

Ingredients
340g self-raising flour
4 tbsp milk
2 tbsp lemon juice or 1tsp lemon extract
260g sugar
4 eggs beaten
2 lemons zested
255g butter
3 tsp baking powder

Method

Heat the oven to 170C/Gas Mark 4.
Mix all the ingredients together. Put in a lined tray. Bake for about 30-40 minutes, until the knife comes out clean.

Prick cake with skewer whilst warm. Squeeze the juice from the lemons and add caster sugar. Heat for 20 seconds in the microwave to dissolve sugar. Pour slowly over cake.

Add icing sugar mixed with lemon juice to thin paste and cover cake.

Sorry to jump on here OP.

@stucknoue and others who understand conversions. How would you convert a 7 inch recipe to a 10 inch recipe? We're making our wedding cake too. Have got the 7 inch sorted but am unsure how to upscale.

@floatinglily jump away! Previously, I've worked out the volume of the original cake and the projected volume of the cake I want to bake (using πr³) and then calculated the ratio difference. You need to weigh your eggs, unless you're very lucky and have a neat ratio.

If you're going from a square to round tin, it will also affect the way it behaves in the oven, and you might need a wetter or drier mixture. That's a bit of trial and error though. And I did have a way of working out times and temperatures, but I can't remember what it was...

And I'm too sleep deprived for maths anyway, hence reaching out to you lovely people!

Thank you for these, they look great. I'm going to work through from to to bottom!

No! Not πr³. That would give you a ball. A giant cake pop of you will. (πr²) times the depth of your cake. This is why I'm not attempting to maths right now.

@ChaosMoon thanks! It's come back as 2.04 so think I'll try twice as much and see how it turns out. Thankfully they're both round tins.

Good luck with yours

Oops I forgot the depth 🙈

Just wanted to say a big thank you for all your help. The cake went down a storm. Xxx

@floatinglily I hope the ratio wasn't too awkward once you'd recalculated. Good luck!

That looks amazing op. Well done! I now want a slice How did you do it? I can’t bake a cake to save my life 🙈

That looks so good @ChaosMoon. Thank you so much for thinking of me. I'm not sure what height it's meant to be really, we're winging it a bit. Going to have a try later this week and see how it turns out 🤞

That cake looks amazing and I'm in awe that you did it with a 4m old baby to look after too!