Wedding Cake Help!

[ajmac1972]

I'm in need of some major advice/help.

As a gift for friends, I've volunteered to bake their wedding cake. The decision has been made for a bottom layer of a flowerless chocolate cake and a top layer of a lemon cake.

Here's the dilema...the bride is insisting on the good old confectioners icing..the kind you find on the grocery store cakes.

Anyone out there have some good suggestions I can try out and have her taste? She's already nixed a white chocolate granache, and I've also done a really nice mascrapone with lemone curd...

I just can't bare to do all of that work just to top it off with something so not right...not that the icing isn't perfectly fine by itself...but on top of these cakes, well...

Any suggestions for recipes would be so appreciated~

AJ

[ladyyoung98]

i think what u r looking for is a buttercream frosting for the cake..real easy to find and most bakeries i know of actually use it for many wedding cakes

here is the recipe i use

Buttercream Icing

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening

1/2 teaspoon wilton Butter flavoring (extract)

4 cups of sifted powdered sugar

2 tablespoons of meringue powder

2 tablepoons of water or milk

cream butter and shortening with electric mixer . Add butter flavoring, water and mix. add meringue powder and gradually add the sifted powdered sugar one cup at a time beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. if icing is too stiff you may add another tablespon of water..if still a little stiff ad another tablespoon of water but no more than that.

keep icing covered with a damp cloth until ready to use, and refrigerate any leftover frosting up to 2 weeks.. re whip before using.

yeild 3 cups

please remember that if this is your first time making a wedding cake..the layers do not simply sit one on top of the other..they do have help in between each layer..depending upon what kind tiering you plan to do...if you are going for the stacked look of one on top of the other the best book i can possibly suggest to you for showing how to tier a wedding cake...will be any of the wiltos wedding cake books...it will show you how to tier the cakes..how to transport them..how to cut them and how many servings you will get out of the cake....keep in mind that the top layer of a wedding cake is not normally cut at the wedding recpetion but rather removed and is saved for the first wedding anniversary of the newly married couple.....when u go looking for a wiltons wedding cake book make sure u check it out to make sure allthe info u want is there...u may even find one or two that also have the recipe for the butter cream icing

Have your friend taste test this and if it is the one she wants for her wedding cake you will need to make additional batches to cover the cake

Edited September 9, 2004 by ladyyoung98 (log)

[Carolyn Tillie]

Kill the bride.

Okay, okay, that probably isn't the best idea. I would, however, make her a flourless chocolate cake and top it with the worst grocery store-style icing you can get and show her just how bad it is. Then maybe you can talk her into something good!

[amccomb]

You could do a swiss or italian meringue buttercream, which seems softer, richer, more fluffy, and not as sugary to me. It's still white, and still contains butter.

Maybe you could make up a few batches of icings, and then cut up a plain flourless cake into small bite sized pieces, and let her try a bite with each icing.

There is also fondant and marzipan as options.

Anyway, I am in the same boat. I made a beautiful wedding cake for some friends - 7 different flavors of mousse (we called them charlottes - there was a thin cake bottom, the edge was like a fence of ladyfingers, and the mousse filling went inside) and the cakes were topped with fresh berries. There were 150 people at the wedding, and I think every single one of them came up to me to rave about the amazing cake. Now my mom has asked me to make her wedding cake, and I start coming up with ideas (mostly centering on chocolate, because she LOVES chocolate, and loved my wedding cake, which was chocolate with white chocoalte mousse filling and chocolate ganache, so much she ate the leftovers with her hands in the car on the way home) and she has shot down every one. She wants white cake with white bakery-style icing. Today I mailed her two slices of cake - a white cake and a chocolate cake from egullet, and iced them with different icings - an italian meringue buttercream and a regular buttercream. I just KNOW she will pick the regular one.

I wish she would at least allow me to do some fun fillings! I've been making jam like crazy, and have some really wonderful jams and jellies that would make great cake fillings.

[Wendy DeBord]

The "frosting" that I like with a flourless chocolate cake is whipped cream. Maybe a 7 minute frosting if you can handle the sugar hit...........

I think you'd be better loosing the flourless chocolate layer. It makes a great dessert but not a great wedding cake. Take into consideration who will be cutting this. A flourless chocolate cake would be a nightmare if cut by the wrong person who doesn't know how to and hasn't the patience to do so.

I believe that gifts should be what the person wants/likes not what you want them to like. Same thing goes when making cakes for others.

I'd start from the beginning again and ask this bride what she wants as a total package/goal, whats most important to her. Some brides don't care what something tastes like as much as it be decorated how they dream of. Some don't care about decoration and only focus on flavor..........your bride sounds like they belong in the first example.

[simdelish]

I think you'd be better loosing the flourless chocolate layer. It makes a great dessert but not a great wedding cake. Take into consideration who will be cutting this. A flourless chocolate cake would be a nightmare if cut by the wrong person who doesn't know how to and hasn't the patience to do so.

I believe that gifts should be what the person wants/likes not what you want them to like. Same thing goes when making cakes for others.

I'd start from the beginning again and ask this bride what she wants as a total package/goal, whats most important to her. Some brides don't care what something tastes like as much as it be decorated how they dream of. Some don't care about decoration and only focus on flavor..........your bride sounds like they belong in the first example.

←

(Bold mine)

As usual, Wendy has hit the nail on the head.

[ajmac1972]

Thanks for the suggestions thus far...

I'd lose the flourless layer if I could,and just go with lemon, but it's what she wants. I will take you up on making the confectioners icing with it and see what she decides then. She's already told me she hates buttercream...

I may be stuck, it's just unfortunate for the guests...and I like the idea of killing the bride right now...slight rant to get it off my chest...

I only have round cake pans, she wants square...has demanded square, so in addition to buying the ingredients, on multiple occassions for tastings...I've got to buy new pans...

did I mention that my husband is officiating? he's not ordained, so we're paying for that too....you can do it online, and then purchase a license in the state (which I find pretty funny)

to make a long story short, we're ending up helping a friend on a limited budget who's turned into bridezilla...

It's a pickle...a big giant pickle...

Next time, I'm picking up a gift off the registry

Thanks again for all the help!

[ajmac1972]

You could do a swiss or italian meringue buttercream, which seems softer, richer, more fluffy, and not as sugary to me.  It's still white, and still contains butter.

Maybe you could make up a few batches of icings, and then cut up a plain flourless cake into small bite sized pieces, and let her try a bite with each icing.

There is also fondant and marzipan as options.

Anyway, I am in the same boat.  I made a beautiful wedding cake for some friends - 7 different flavors of mousse (we called them charlottes - there was a thin cake bottom, the edge was like a fence of ladyfingers, and the mousse filling went inside) and the cakes were topped with fresh berries.  There were 150 people at the wedding, and I think every single one of them came up to me to rave about the amazing cake.  Now my mom has asked me to make her wedding cake, and I start coming up with ideas (mostly centering on chocolate, because she LOVES chocolate, and loved my wedding cake, which was chocolate with white chocoalte mousse filling and chocolate ganache, so much she ate the leftovers with her hands in the car on the way home) and she has shot down every one.  She wants white cake with white bakery-style icing.  Today I mailed her two slices of cake - a white cake and a chocolate cake from egullet, and iced them with different icings - an italian meringue buttercream and a regular buttercream.  I just KNOW she will pick the regular one.

I wish she would at least allow me to do some fun fillings!  I've been making jam like crazy, and have some really wonderful jams and jellies that would make great cake fillings.

←

It's nice to know there's someone out there in a similar boat. The jams sound great...maybe I could talk her into a rasberry filling in between layers...

[nicolekaplan]

and now for the unthinkable.....

make a fake cake to display with beautiful perfect frosting or fondant and then make your flourless choc and lemon cakes in sheets topped with that ungodly frosting and serve them.

i agree that a flourless choc cake may not be the best thing to put in a wedding cake that will have to be carefully cut after sitting out on display for an extended period of time, but do what you must to make the bride happy

[Swisskaese]

The thought of frosting a flourless chocolate cake makes me sick. The cake is rich enough without frosting.

I agree, make the cake and frost it and unless she enjoys going into a diabetic coma, she will probably change her mind.

[PastryLady]

I agree with the fake cake. I just made one and the stryofoam (sp?) was only about 20 bucks. You can make the cheap icing to save you some cash too and make the lemon and flourless on the side. Flourless with any icing doesn't appeal to me at all. You definately need a smaller piece too with the flourless too as it is so rich. I would do a lemon chiffon with lemon curd filling for the other iced with crisco, up "buttercream". Just the thought of crisco icing makes me do that peanut butter on the roof of your mouth thing. I would draw up a price sheet with all the details of their options that they want too, so they realize just how much you will be donating to them possibly. By the way, you can get square stryofoam and the cakes will be cut in back so they would never know. Evil laugh...