My Very First Wedding Cake

When I was asked to make my friends' wedding cake, I was both honored and excited. Shortly after that, I got a bit scared and then panic set in. Oh my gosh... a wedding cake! Those things are HUGE. And they have to look stunning and taste fantastic. I kept telling myself, it's like a birthday cake, only bigger. I can do this! I can do this!

I needed information from a trustworthy source so I went to my library. There were several books on the subject of Wedding Cakes. I browsed through several books but decided to take home Dede Wilson's "Wedding Cakes You Can Make". The first half of the book discusses everything you need to know, from tools and cake pans, to creating a schedule. I highly recommend this book because I learned a lot from it.

Another invaluable source of information was Rose Levy Beranbaum's website: "Real Baking with Rose". The forum is great with lots of cake experts willing to help out. One of the major contributors to the website and master cake baker, Hector, has graciously answered numerous questions of mine. I thank you sincerely, Hector!

After some experimenting, I finally decided on the cake to make: yellow butter cake from Rose's book, The Cake Bible. This decision came after baking several different cakes and having my husband, friends and coworkers give me their opinions on what they liked and disliked. This cake won hands down. After one bit of Rose's cake, my husband said: "this is the one". He said he didn't even need to taste the other piece cake on his plate, awaiting a taste test :o) The other thing I loved about this cake is that in Rose's book, the math for all the different pan sizes was already done for me. Piece of cake! :o)

For the filling I used my own recipe for a Strawberry Cream Cheese filling. The frosting needed to be white so I went with a buttercream frosting. Both were made in advance and frozen.

I used a floating tiers cake stand by Wilton. This way the cakes didn't have to be stacked on top of one another. This cake stand holds a 14" cake, a 10" cake and a 6" cake. To ensure there was plenty of cake fore everyone to eat, my friends wanted me to make an extra 8" cake (not displayed on the stand) and an extra 6" cake so they could serve one and save one for their first wedding anniversary.

The best part after completing my very first wedding cake project was that everybody loved the way the cake looked, and more importantly, how it tasted.

Without further ado, here are the pictures. Enjoy!

Roses and Baby's Breath for decorating the top of each cake

Bride and groom plus the wedding cake on the cake stand
(I asked and they were OK with me posting this picture on my blog)

A close-up of the 14" cake with a total of 8 lilac roses and 5 white roses

This is the 10" cake decorated with 6 lilac roses and 3 white roses

Another close-up of the 10" cake

This was my slice of wedding cake - very tasty, if I say so myself :o)

SMS - Double Chocolate Cherry Cookies

Sorry for missing last week's SMS recipe. From all the comments I've read about last week's Butterscotch Cashews Bars, it seems like I've missed a good one. It's definitely on my "rewind" list. I have a good excuse though. My friend got married yesterday and guess who had the honor of making the couple's wedding cake? Yours truly :o) Everybody loved the way the cake looked, but more importantly (to me anyway) is that everybody loved the cake's taste. I'll post wedding cake pictures soon!

This week's SMS recipe, Double Chocolate Cherry Cookies, was chosen by Megan from My Baking Adventures. Chocolate and dried fruit... what's not to love? Thanks for choosing this recipe, Megan!! Check out the recipe for these yummy cookies here.

Last step of the cookie dough making process

Unfortunately, I didn't have any dried cherries so I substituted craisins (sweetened dried cranberries). As the name implies, they're dried and therefore have a tendency to absorb moisture. In this case, steal moisture from the cookie. To prevent this, I like to soak dried fruit in a little bit of hot water or juice. Today, I soaked the craisins in a mixture of hot water and orange juice. This process will also help prevent the craisins from drying out in the oven.

Nice and round, thanks to the empty paper towel roll "trick"

The other change I made is reduce the baking soda and add baking powder. I find that too much baking soda leaves an off-flavor in baked goods. The last change I made is use semi-sweet chocolate chips as well as white chocolate chips (50/50) because I like cranberries and white chocolate. These were "real" white chocolate chips by Callebaut, meaning they contain cocoa butter, not some vegetable oil.

One dozen pieces of delicious chocolaty goodness

Freshly baked cookies and a pretty pink rose from my garden

Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby and I liked the cookies, but I liked them a bit more than he did. Hubby found the cookie to be a bit too chocolaty. He also would have liked more craisins. His rating: 7.5 out of 10. I enjoyed the cookie a lot. Chocolaty goodness with a crispy edge, chewy craisins and a soft center. I ate the cookies about 1.5 hours after they came out of the oven. The chocolate chips were still melty and delicious.
• I baked a dozen cookies and froze the second log for another time.
• Baking time: 6 minutes, turn cookie sheet 180 degrees, 7 more minutes.
  
• Modified leavening: 3/4 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp baking powder.
• Always plump up your dried fruit before adding them to your dough or batter to prevent them from stealing moisture from your baked goods.
• I remembered to use an empty paper towel roll this time. This kept the log of dough nice and round.
  
• Don't forget to check out the blogroll and see how other SMS bakers liked this cookie.

Yum!

SMS #11 - Chocolate Chip Cookies with Toasted Almonds

Guess who picked this week's SMS recipe? Ok, you'll NEVER guess. Melissa Murphy!! Yes, the author of the book, The Sweet Melissa Baking Book, we all bake from each week. Melissa picked the bakery's favorite cookie, the Chocolate Chip Cookie with Toasted Almonds. YES! Such a welcome change from the usual walnuts, which I can't eat due to allergies (don't ask me why I can eat almonds but not walnuts).

I almost sat this week's recipe out but then decided to go for it after all. So around midnight on Saturday I made the dough and decided to use a combination of semi-sweet chocolate chips and butterscotch chips (4 ounces each). What can I say? It was too late to be chopping chocolate. And instead of roasting natural almonds, I used those ready-to-eat salted/roasted almonds, which worked great.


I'm glad I didn't skip this week. These cookies were chewy in the middle and crispy around the edges with a great buttery taste, just the way I like them. I love the crunch of the almonds which I gave a very rough chop. I only wish my cookies turned out as this thick as Melissa's. Maybe I'll add a bit more flour next time. Check out the recipe here. Thanks for picking a great cookie recipe, Melissa. No wonder it's a favorite at the bakery.


Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby and I enjoyed these cookies. He gave it an 8 out of 10. His only dislike was that the cookie left his fingers more "oily" than usual. I might add a tablespoon of flour to hopefully fix that issue.
  
• Using butterscotch chips and chocolate chips was a last-minute decision. To my taste, the cookie was a tad too sweet. I'm sure it would have been the right amount of sweetness if I had used chocolate chips only. So next time, I'd use a tad less sugar when using butterscotch chips.
• I added a teaspoon of molasses to the dough to enhance the brown sugar flavor in the cookie. It also adds to the browning of the cookie.
• Unfortunately, I read this tip a bit too late but I thought I'd share it with you all for next time. Place your wrapped cookie dough inside of an empty paper towel roll so that you don't get that flat underside. I got this tip from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book.
• Don't forget to check out the SMS blogroll to see how other SMS bakers liked this cookie.
  

SMS #10 - Peach Cobbler (kind of)

Andrea of Nummy Kitchen chose this week's SMS recipe: Bear's Peach Cobbler. This would be my first time making a cobbler so I was pretty excited about it. I decided that I would use frozen peaches, since fresh peaches would probably not be sweet and juicy (yet). During my last stop of my Saturday grocery shopping routine, I remembered I needed to buy the frozen peaches. Well, guess what? They didn't have any. With no time to go to a different store, I decided I'm either going to skip this week or be creative and use something else. I already had strawberries. What else to add? Hmmmm... the rhubarb in my garden is ready for harvest and I love the strawberry/rhubarb combo. So I went for that.


I had to make a few changes to the recipe. Given the tartness of the rhubarb, I omitted the lemon juice in the filling and used orange juice instead. Same thing with the lemon zest (replaced it with orange zest). I actually used the orange zest in the topping as well as the filling.

All in all, the Strawberry/Rhubarb Cobbler turned out great, even though it became somewhat messy in the oven when the juices overflowed. I would definitely make it again, and maybe try peaches next time :o)


A special thanks to Andrea for choosing this recipe. It was a fun and easy recipe to make, and most importantly delicious. You can find the recipe for it here. Don't forget to check out the other SMS bakers and see what they thought of this recipe.

Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby and I enjoyed this dessert a lot. When asked for a rating, hubby gave it a 9 out of 10. The aesthetics (as the cobbler was a bit over browned) is what kept this puppy from getting a perfect grade.
• I cut the recipe half and used 1.5 cups of strawberries and 1.5 cups of sliced rhubarb. Given the tartness of the rhubarb, I used 1/2 cup of sugar
• Instead of mixing the corn starch with the fruit, I followed a technique by Greg Patent where you add sugar to the fruit, let it sit while you make the dough, then drain it. Now add the citrus juice and corn starch to the liquid and bring it to a boil and cook for a minute. Add this thickend mixture to the fruit and divide the fruit filling into ramekins.
• I made the dough in the food processor (dry ingredients first, mix, add cold butter, mix, add cream, mix, done).
  

Birthday cake

I usually bake my own birthday cake. Although I skipped this “tradition” last year, I thought I’d make up for it by making this year’s cake extra special. With so many different cakes, fillings, and frostings to choose from, where do you start? I had just borrowed Flo Braker’s “Baking for All Occasions” from the library and wanted to bake from it. The idea of a deconstructed Black Forest Cake or Schwarzwalder Kirsch Torte came to me. Now I had everything I needed to start baking.



Instead of the usual sponge cake, I thought the cake would taste good with a vanilla bean-infused white cake. I used Flo Braker’s recipe for Silver Cake with Poppy Seeds and just omitted the poppy seeds as she recommended for a classic white cake.

I love fruit-based mousses and have made them multiple times for cake fillings. In this case, in order to stay in the Black Forest Cake spirit, I thought I’d make a cherry mousse. If you haven’t had a chance to browse through Rick Rodgers’ “Kaffeehaus”, you’re missing out on tons of delectable recipes for European-style baked goods. For my birthday cake, I adapted his recipe for Strawberry Cream Filling. For that extra cherry flavor, I arranged halved cherries on top of the mousse filling.

Now for the icing on the cake (literally), I decided to use white chocolate instead of dark chocolate, so I chose Flo Braker’s recipe White Chocolate/Cream Cheese Buttercream frosting. I highly recommend using good-quality white chocolate for this otherwise it will taste like wax. This frosting was very creamy with a great melt-in-your-mouth feel to it. The vanilla flavor in the white chocolate paired beautifully with the vanilla bean aroma in the white cake. The almond flavor added to the the frosting complimented the cherries very well, in my opinion. On top of the cake, I spread some cherry preserves for that nice dark red color contrast against the ivory-white frosting.