It takes the cake

As promised, I am sharing a cut picture of my practice wedding cake. I have to say that it did feel somewhat like a ceremonial moment, cutting my first wedding cake! I decided that after seeing what it does to all of the beautiful decorations, in future occasions where my creations are being cut open, I don't want to be the one that has to do it!

The outer most white layer is fondant, which I quickly learned is best if peeled away and thrown out--it can make a good cake terrible! The second layer is marzipan, and the cake is a very dense fruitcake. It was tasty and rich, however wouldn't be my wedding cake of choice, but this is how the English do it, and they invented the wedding cake!

Hard to believe that our cakes section is over and we are now in our 10th week of classes. January 8th we returned to make our last two cakes. We reviewed and taste tested our practice wedding cakes (shown above), make our final wedding cakes and making Opera cakes. Above is a photo of all of the wedding cakes from our class on display.

This is my final wedding cake. This wedding cake was assigned by our chef and I was told to do the exact same cake, working on making the flowers thinner and the drop string piping (the swags) more even. Although that was quite a challenge, I had hoped that I would be assigned to do something much different from what I had done in my practice. I had to come up with something that I was happy with at first and make it even better, and it ended up being a good challenge.Everyone was instructed to make a two tiered cake with one 9" and one 6" tier. They had to be poundcake made with shortening in place of the butter, so that they could be preserved into eternity. There was a crumb coat done with a shortening/powdered sugar icing combo and then the entire cake was coated with fondant. This is the type of cake that would be great served at your worst enemies wedding! The main focus here was the presentation and decoration.

The flowers on my cake were made of gum paste, and I brushed the inner part with gold shimmer dusting powder, which is edible. I added two leaves to each side of each flower, which I didn't have in the practice. The leaves were brushed with pearl shimmer dust, as was the snail trial piping detail at the base of each tier.

I wanted to do something on the top for this cake, but something simple. I made a slightly larger flower than I used on the sides and wired six together to create a bouquet. I was very happy with the result and the flowers. The most difficult part was the drop string, which I struggled to get even and smooth.

Our last cake was a pavee, which is a very thin cake (should be about 1" thick) with many layers. This pavee is called an Opera Cake and the layers consisted of nut joconde, mocha cake syrup, mocha French buttercream and ganache, which were all topped with a poured ganache and decorated with the word "Opera." It was very good, although ours turned out a bit thick and the poured ganache was way too thick, didn't coat well and had slight blooming--that's what happens when rushing too much! Regardless, a delicious cake to end with.

So, that is the final blog on cakes! Next week I will be moving into doughs, so there will be lots of bread to come, but for now...let them eat cake!