Please help!!! Wedding cakes.......

[sammysam]

I really need some help! I'm really excited as i've just offered to make a close friend their wedding cake-as they had to cut that out due to a budget cut.
The only problem is I have never done anything like this before and have not even made that many cakes
The wedding is in april so i need to get a move on!
I have asked her to email me some suggestions and so far all I know is they don't want fruit cake.

Please can I have some amazing cake recipes to try out please-i'll make a few and get them to try them to see what they like.
At the mo there is also the idea of lots of cup cakes.

Ps there are about 200 people at the wedding-how much do I need to make?

Any/all ideas VERY welcome!

my sister had about that number at her wedding being a bit too clever she did each layer to suit different people. one layer was vegan - one was gluten free and one was traditional fruit.

she did say though that u can only use the tower bits to separate the layers if you have traditional fruit cake as the others aren't strong enough and the whole lot can collapse. not sure about that, sure someone will know!!

I did a wedding cake once that was gluten free, vegetarian, free range, chocolate!!!

And i only had 48hrs notice, You will be fine.

I am sure in my Mary Berry book she has got a wedding cake - hang on let me go and get it.

I like the idea of little cupcakes, but could you really be arsed to ice that many cakes? A decent sized double layered one should do, people only have a tiny piece anyway

if they don't want fruit, and you want to do a big cake/s rather than lots of cupcakes I would suggest madeira as it keeps longer than an ordinary sponge, and you will want a few days to be able to ice it.

regarding size, I think a piece 1"x2" is supposed to be big enough per person, so if you did a 10"x10", 8"x8" and 6"x6" this should be eough with some over to send to people not there on the day. or you could do what my MIL did for us, 2 top tiers, one on display and one to cut, having the display one to keep or cut if needed.

I have a American Chocolate Wedding Cake recipe by Mary Berry and a Wedding Cake by James Martin - would you like me to type them out for you?

Thank you for all your suggestions! Phew I was worrying i'd taken on a tad too much-thanks for reasuring me

bellavita Those recipes would be fantastic if its not too much trouble!

PandaG thanks for the size ideas-I really have no idea! And madeira was something i'd thought of-could I do cupcakes? Then I'd have longer to ice them! But as alicecrail pointed out that could take some time but I suppose you'd get a system and into a rhythm so maybe it'd be ok-kitkatqueens point about the cake not being able to support the other layers might mean thats my only option?

I really am clueless I have never even looked at wedding cakes before being as I'm not married-may have to do some searching online over the next week for ideas!

I really want to make it very special for them-but i don't want to overstretch myself and end up with a disaster iynwim?!

you can do layers of madeira, just need to hire a stand with several arms that supports tha cake above each other, or display separately, rather than using the pillars.

friends wedding we went to had 3 large square cakes, one choc, one lemon and one carrot I think, I think 3 diff friends had made one each - It looked really nice - all different and people could choose which they wanted.

I've never done madeira cupcakes.

whereabouts do you live? if near Sheff I have a great adjustable cake tin that can be any size from 12"x12" downwards, and various icing bags, colourings etc which I am happy to loan?

The James Martin one only serves 20/30 people, so because of the way it looks, not sure if you would be able to do larger quantities/tiers.

But I have found this one - you could make tiers for it

www.goodtoknow.co.uk/food/138379/White-chocolate-celebration-cake

and here is Mary Berry's American Chocolate Wedding Cake -

30 eggs separated
8 whole eggs
21b 13oz caster sugar
31bs 9oz good quality plain chocolate broken into pieces and melted
11b 14oz ground almonds
7 and a half tsps black coffee
8oz apricot jam, sieved.

Icing
2 and a half 1b plain chocolate broken into pieces
11b unsalted butter

To Decorate
foliage and flowers

Pre-heat the oven to 190oC/375oF/Gas 5. Lightly grease and line a 6 in, a 9 in and a 12 in deep round cake tins with greased proof paper.

Measure the yolks, whole eggs and sugar into a large bowl and whisk until thick and light. Add slightly cooled chocolate with the almonds and the coffee.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff but not dry. Fold carefully into the chocolate mixutre, then divide the mixture between the prepared tins.

Bake in a pre-heated oven. The small cake will take about 45 mins, the medium cake about 1 hour and the large about 1 and a half hours (cover loosely after 1 hour). They can all go into the oven at once, large on the middle shelf and the two smaller cakes on the top shelf. Test the centre of each with a skewere which sould come out just about clean. Turn on to a wire rack to cool completely. At this point, the cakes can be frozen. Turn the cakes upside down so that the flat side is uppermost. Brush over the tops and sides with the warm sieved jam.

For the icing, melt the chocolate slowly in a bowl over a pan of hot water, add the butter and stir until the butter has melted. Place each cake on a cooling rack with a baking tray underneath to catch the drips and pour over the chocolate icing. Smooth the top and sides with a palette knife and then leave to set in a cool place.

Place the largest cake on a board or serving plate and stack the other two cakes on top. Decorate, in situ with fresh flowers and foliage.

It does say you need huge bowls to make this cake. The icing should be made the day before the wedding otherwise it will lose its sheen.

If you want to try the smaller cake out first - here are the quantities
3 eggs separated
1 whole egg
5oz caster sugar
6oz chocolate
3oz ground almonds
half a teaspoon black coffee
2 tblsp of apricot jam

Icing
8oz plain chocolate
3oz butter

Some wedding cake ideas here
(I think the Jane Hornby one with 3 different tiers looks nice)

We used this Wilton stand to stack 6 layers, which included Victoria sponge. chocolate cake and fruit cake.

You have to be brave though and impale each cake for it to work - and I ended up doing it myself on the morning of the Wedding, which was v scary! But it worked really well and was very "wow".

I haven't got long enough to read all your fantastic suggestions as I'm supposed to be packing to go to my mums for the weekend in a min we're running very late!!
But I will read in detail when we get back sun night/mon morn! Thank you so much!
Panda-I'm in dorset-so quite far away. I suppose really I need to work out what I am going to put the cake on and then work around that? I'll be working with as small a budget at poss so need to look at this carefully....chatname that stand looks amazing-how much did it cost in £ to buy and get to you?

Can't wait to get back and look through the suggestions and start planning
Thank you again!!

Sammysam about £40ish. Are you in East Dorset by any chance ?

Cd you make loads of prettily iced cupcakes, with the theme of the wedding? Really nice display stands available? We did this, it looked great. If not, I second Bellavita and Mary Berry. There is a practice run in the MB cook book too of the same cake.

I now have a cake to copy as she has seen one she really likes and can put matching flowers on top. Here it is......so how do I go about it? No mazipan though as they don't like it. Which cake recipe would work best do you think?

chatname-i'm very to say i'm not sure-i'm in Poole-I think its central surely it can't be east?!

stroppy-I love the idea of cupcakes-my sis is getting married in dwc and wants cupcakes...if this goes well maybe I could do hers as well

what about carrot cake for one of the layers?

think i would suggest for the smallest cake (ie if you have 3 layers) that it be a fruit cake as many people do love fruit cake (i dont)

i cheated on my wedding i got the iced fruit cakes from m&s and put a mini version of my wedding flowers on top

I quite like the idea of different layers being different cakes....very stupid question but could I ice a carrot cake with that kind of icing (I dodn't even know what it is called ) i've only even eaten carrot cake with butter? icing....

On the website is says it feeds 144 people-I need to feel 200 so how big do you think the layers need to be?

I really am so clueless!!!

sammy - I would make the cake as is on the website and then do a couple of extra cakes to make up the numbers to feed 200.

So, one of those bars gives what an extra 22 slices? so you are going to need 3 of those or two but bigger.

What I meant to say was that no one has to know that the wedding cake on show will not feed all ghe guests (apart from you and the bride of course).

ghe? the

I am in exactly the same boat as you. Making my friends wedding cake in may so here are some really useful link.

www.wilton.com/wedding/wedding-cakes/wedding-cake-data.cfm

www.creativecelebrationcakes.co.uk/page40.htm

www.cakecentral.com/ this forum is brilliant.

Hope this is of some help.

Bellavita-that sounds like a much better idea than trying to figure out making it a different size!

Chipo-thank you so much for those links-they look VERY helpful!!

If want to use cake other than fruit can still build in tower if use polystyrene b;ocks in between. These can get from cake making type shop on high street or try online. They come in variuos size rounds and can wrap in approp colour ribbon.

Its hard to stack them, my mum (who does make cakes) had a practice run for my wedding cake and they kept sinking.

You might be better to hire an s shaped cake stand and make 3 large round cakes?
www.take-the-cake.co.uk/img/cakestands/cakestand5.jpg

Cake shops are really helpful and you can hire all sorts from them.

I would play it really really safe because its better to do it simple and get it right than to be ambitious and for it to go crazy wrong.

You could make lots of different cakes and have them all out on a table - a bit like a WI stand at a country fair? We did this, had lots of different flavours and everyone loved the fact they got to try 7 different types of cake. All gone in about 15 minutes - fed 120. Guess it's all down to if they want the cutting the big wedding cake shot. You may have already mentioned this - have skipper through thread. Apologies.

Another option is brownies - lots of them stacked up a la Nigella. Or cup cakes though that's very popular at weddings recently.

xx