Icing a Wedding cake

milkandsugar

Hey everyone. I was thinking of making my own wedding cake. I'm a fairly decent baker but have no clue about icing. have been looking stuff up on the web and it doesn't look to be too difficult until you get to decoration but i don't want anything to fancy and there will only be 40 of us at the wedding. Any body got any ideas on where to even start or am i just nuts and should i just get it done professionally???

Eviledna

I reckon you can do it yourself, but depending on what you want you might want to go to a professional. The key to DIY is practice, and I made and iced my sisters cake last year, and I'm just an amateur.:)
First consider what kind of cake you're gonna make, and how many tiers. Most hotels have a stacked stand so you won't have to stack the tiers atop one another, unless you want to.
The cake will have to withstand the weight of the icing, so we are taking a dense cake like Madeira, devils food, rich carrot- no sponges or light cakes, they'll collapse.
Then it's usually cover with buttercream like this and cover with White fondant like this. Fondant can be tricky and takes lots of practice, do a search here for similar threads and listen to the pros advice.
You can decorate it with fondant flowers or ribbon, check out YouTube tutorials for more ideas.
Finally,consider the days leading up to your wedding day. Do you want to be preoccupied with making your cake? Dont underestimate it, it takes hours if not days, and can go wrong, so don't imagine it will take up only a part of your days before.

All in all I bet you could do it, if you want to. Best of luck

Acoshla

Everything Edna said there pretty much covers it, from a different point of view check with your venue that they accept cakes that aren't from HSE registered kitchens, as many hotels request this (some don't ask at all but better to be safe than sorry!).

For 40 people were you thinking of having a one tier cake or a small two tier?

milkandsugar

I was thinking a two tier with one being biscuit cake and i'm not sure about the second layer yet. I never even thought to ask the hotel will they take it. Thanks for the help we are on a very tight budget and i can't see the sense in paying out big money when i could do it myself. I'll think i will start the attempt this week.

Acoshla

You probably wouldn't need a two tier for portions if you're doing CBC but of course that doesn't have to stop you, more cake for the next day! CBC can be awkward to cover, two layers of icing might be needed to get a smooth finish (two thin layers or one thick one), but you don't have to dowel it for the second tier to sit on top like you would have to with a soft cake.

Decobake in Clane and Kildare do cake decorating demos if you were near to either of them, so you could see how it's done.

annamcmahon

I did our cake last year. I'm a baker and my husband had practiced icing some christmas cakes the december before. I did an 8" fruit cake and a 6" sponge and put the sponge onto. I'd rang a wedding cake place beforehand and they said it would be plenty for 50 guests.

I got fondant icing from decobake and bought sugar callia lillies the same colour as my dress, wine. Covered with white icing and stuck in the lillies. It looked grand. Not perfect by any means but I didn't mind so we didn't try to make it look that way. We weren't having official cake cutting photos.

Like you were saying it seemed a bit silly to pay some to make something I could do myself especially when I was happy with something simple.

KarrieF

Hi.
I too am making a wedding cake soon - for a friend's wedding.

milkandsugar - how is it going? Have you practised much yet?

Can I ask (annamcmahon) how did you stick on the sugar flowers? Do you literally push them into the icing, or is there another method, using pins or edible glue, or something like that? if you dont mind me asking, where did you buy them?

I have practised icing the cakes, but have not yet tried to stack them. Doing a 3-tier cake. Any tips or advise for that? I know cake cards & dowelling rods are required, but I have not yet attempted using them.

Thanks, karrie!

DreamC

It depends on the type of sugar flowers you are using. The general rule is that if you have wired flowers, they are assembled into the spray first and then fixed into your desired position using food grade plastic "posy-pick". Or the cake top arrangement can be just placed on top when the cake is assembled at the venue.

Small light flowers can be fixed onto the cake with edible glue or royal icing.

But the rule is that no inedible non-foodgrade objects should contact or be stuck into the cake which is going to be served to the guests.

annamcmahon

I got them in DecoBake in Clane but somewhere like Kitchen Complements in Dublin city centre would have them too. They were wired when I bought them so I just inserted the wire into the cake. I had a 6" and an 8" tier put one on the top and one on the front part of the 8" tier that wasn't covered by the 6" tier. The top tier was sponge while the bottom was fruit cake so I could just place one on top of the other without any supports or dowls because the sponge was so much lighter. Don't know if that's possible if the different tiers weigh the same.

Acoshla

A lighter tier can go below a heavier tier once it's dowelled. Wired flowers are meant to go into a posy pick as DreamC said, they shouldn't be stuck directly into the icing.

Sweetpea101

Girls, if you know a friend who does this sort of thing you could ask for it as a wedding present!!

phormium

And that is the reason I stopped accepting wedding invitations years ago, too many free cakes expected!

DreamC

No wonder. You would not believe but some people would expect to get a free cake (usually of a very intricate design) AND a present too.

Eviledna

DreamC wrote: »

No wonder. You would not believe but some people would expect to get a free cake (usually of a very intricate design) AND a present too.

Seriously? Jeepers that is really underestimating the work that goes into it!

Although that being said I found myself in that position this coming year, but it's for a bud and she asked for it as her prezzie. And she knows I'm a total amateur so really she's the one taking a risk

siledee

The answer to your prayer is.....cake dummies !!

Did my daughters cake last year, my one and only attempt ever.
Bottom layer was a fruit cake...needed for cutting. The other three layers were dummies covered with icing. You can stack them as high as you like and because they are so light you dont need to faff about with dowels and such.
Ribbon at the bottom of the layers covered the joins but this could be done with beads, diamantes, small flowers or even a bit of piping.

All the dummies and decorations are on the net. Google is your friend.

Chocolate and carrot cake was given to the kitchen for serving purposes.

As for the actual icing...well I watched a few videos on youtube and practiced on the dummies. Its not really that difficult.

Result was rather good(even if I say so myself) the daughter was delighted and we saved a bliddy fortune.