Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

wedding pastry help please...


gfron1

Recommended Posts

Thanks Serj. When I came in this morning I saw that I forgot to wash the dishes from the tasting last night. On one of the plates there was some of the mousse which hadn't melted away, so if it can stand up to a room temp sink all night, then I think it can handle a couple of hours in a walk-in. But that does mean I'll be plating in my shop and not on site.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you have a walk in at the event?

If so, plate at the event.

Bring two people along with you to help.

Unless those plates are warm to the touch nothing is going to happen to the cakes.

All of that in & out freezers will result in condensation.

My two cents,

Best of luck!

2317/5000

Link to comment
Share on other sites

gfron1, I hope it all goes swimmingly. It sounds lovely and delicious.

You will post pix? pls?

Q for anyone - after the initial tasting, agreement and order, is all this checking and rechecking with the bride, is this normal? It would drive me nuts, were I the bride.

"You dont know everything in the world! You just know how to read!" -an ah-hah! moment for 6-yr old Miss O.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

and this my friends is why I don't do wedding cakes. Here is it just past midnight, I have to head back in 5 hours to start my lunch prep. Wedding cakes are just too damn important to screw up or have flaws.

Whining over. I have 87 of the individuals and the one large. Everything is exactly as I want it. Almost anyway - I wanted to fill the large with something else, but I settled on more mousse with a good soaking of the cake and a layer of jam. Everything is freezing up right now. I'll spray them mid-morning, and do my final geleè on the large cake just after that.

I'll get pics tomorrow and update on Sun or Mon. Zzzzzzzzz

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, I woke up with a mild panic. "Freeze overnight" is a relative term I guess. And sure enough, while my large cake is frozen, its not frozen hard yet. I put the spraying on my schedule for 9 am so it has a couple more hours and my freezer is pretty hard core. And I'm going to do one final final final count of the pastries to make sure I have more than enough.

Edited by gfron1 (log)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

hope everything goes swimmingly! Haven't been here to cheer you on but waiting for pix as we speak...

BTW, sometimes a wedding cake IS the dessert. I've had several brides order 3 different sizes of a particular favorite dessert, set them up on a stand, and call it a day. My best friend had a giant stand made and filled it with custard tartlets, native Filipino sweets and coconut candy (this was after I had to send my regrets about not being able to be there to make her wedding cake -- she moved it up 3 months and I wasn't prepared to leave.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

whew...I'm ready to go home and crash. Did I mention that I had a 300 person cater from 5-7 and then the cake was to be delivered at 7:30. More on that later, but the only moment that matters - the absolutely stunning bride opened her mouth to accept the cake from her hubby, took a bite, she smiled, kissed hubby, looked at me and gave me a glowing thumbs up with a big grin. That's what its all about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here we go...I'm a bit fatigued still, but yesterday was a very good day for our business. I had neglected to mention (because it wasn't that much labor on my part) that we had a fundraising cater from 4:30-7 yesterday for the Rotary Club. This was our first chance to be at the event since we opened the cafè, and so I had to make sure we had the best stuff. Everyone else did the same ol same ol - enchiladas, ribs, ice cream, cream puffs, etc. I did a variation on Alinea's sous vide cooked pork belly with a smoked paprika and cayenne sugar coating over savory chocolate soil. A lot of the cowboys passed and then came back later regretting after the word got out, but alas, we were the first to sell out - so no pork belly for you cowboy!

Then I took off to the kitchen for final prep on the desserts. They were essentially finished except for on-site assembly.

Here's the cake in assembly mode:

gallery_41282_4652_37665.jpg

filled with a snow white geleè

gallery_41282_4652_63052.jpg

Now, I stop in the story to say that the couple had a friend who did a monogram that they used on all of their invites and such. That's also the monogram that we had custom printed on chocolate. The bride said, "Sure, we'll just have our friend pipe the monogram on the cake." "Sure" is all I heard and thought, "I better have my backup plan."

Well, "Sure" enough, friend chickened out at the last minute...literally. So I tossed some fresh raspberries on and a bit of edible silver. The cake was almond biscuit, vanilla bavarois, biscuit (soaked with raspberry syrup and campari) and surrounded by raspberry mousse. I piped some whipped cream stars around the outside at the last second when friend chickened out.

My cake didn't fully thaw and I saw that when they did the cut. They were in love and didn't care. But I definitely noted it for the future. Here's the couple doing the cut:

gallery_41282_4652_42176.jpg

Like I said in the previous post, the highlight was the bride taking a bite, kissing the husband and then looking for me to give me the thumbs up.

With the ceremonial cutting done it was time for the masses

gallery_41282_4652_86766.jpg

That's our own PatrickA in the back having just done one final count, just in case (as if there would be anything I could do at that point if we were short.)

gallery_41282_4652_84265.jpg

The most important less I learned was that even though I see every little flaw, the guests don't. That doesn't mean that flaws are acceptable, but it helps me not to dwell. I re-learned the need to keep my mousse loose when I pipe it in to a mold (v. over whipped), and to keep my tip buried to be sure to fill in the whole mold.

And after all of this, here is the final product:

gallery_41282_4652_11719.jpg

Thanks to everyone who helped me on this. Now my next adventure, processing 50 pounds of kumquats!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Awesome job Rob. I'm still holding on to my "I don't do weddings" rule but it looks like you did great. A thumbs up from the bride is perfect... she'll tell everybody she knows.

It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

gallery_41282_4652_11719.jpg

Well, that looks just as beautiful as anything I've seen in the pastry shops of Tokyo. And you'll never be able to learn to turn everything out flawlessly unless you have a chance to practice like this. I imagine you have a great big notebook somewhere, filled with notes like, "Bury the tip!!!" and "Never trust the friends!!!" double and triple underlined.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...