Karly's Wedding Cake

I ask myself every time I make one of these, why I put myself through the stress. My Mom asks me the same question, and always adds that this cake should be the last one we do! It 's been said ever since the original cakes I made with my friend Jen. I never seem to say no those friends who've had their hearts set on me making their wedding cake since seeing pics of those original ones. I know, not surprising knowing me, but still...

Usually my blog posts of my wedding cake making involve all of the drama which accompanies the existing drama and stress already present when taking on this certain task. I don't know if it was because it was a Saturday wedding, or if it was because it was my roommate's cake, or if I'm just getting better at it (not), but this one seemed to go off without much drama. At least no major drama to report. It is a long process, and it has been a very long week, but I thought I would give you all the "in process" pics, thanks to a suggestion by Shameonyou21.

Lemon Cake, Raspberry Filling, Cream Cheese Frosting

From This

To This

Must border the edges so the filling doesn't ooze out into the frosting on the outside.

All filled, and all stacked. I usually only do two layers, but they were thin so I made another one!

I believe this is the 2nd coat of frosting, before they are all smoothed out.

TA DAH! I made Idyllic Ideas have her flower lady do the tops of the cakes. No Belnaps, or Mommy doing arrangements last minute!

My Mom asked the flower lady once we set up the cakes on their stands, how the arrangements were going to look. She freaked out and said "The arrangement are over there, and I'LL get to it in a minute. As if we were going to try and do it ourselves there! PA-LEEZE!

I monogrammed some ribbon that is along the bottom of the layers, at the request of the bride, with the words:

"Karly & Rob"

"March 6, 2010"

"Draper Utah Temple"

The cake server was a high heel, which is SO Idyllic Ideas!

There you have it. The only real drama that happened was the middles of the cakes kept sinking with under ten minutes to bake it the oven. One of the big layers got over cooked when we tried increasing the oven temperature to compensate for the sinking middles. I ended up remaking some of the layers that were too sunken, and the big layer that got over baked. In the process we decided the layers were just a bit too thin, so I made another layer of each size to go along with the re-makes.

That's pretty good drama for a wedding cake if you ask me! I think some kids poked one, and the ribbon slid down a tiny bit on a couple of layers. The whole night at the reception, I kept going over to the cakes and trying to play with the ribbon, or smooth some parts, or whatever, and my other roommate Nat Nat, had to physically grab my arm a couple of times and yell at me to just leave it alone. I can't help myself. I guess I notice the imperfections more than others might! Even though I don't claim to be, nor ever will claim to be an experienced or awesome cake decorator, I think it turned out alright.

I had made a small sample cake for Idyllic and Fiance to try since I'd never really made a lemon cake before. I didn't want to mess with cake flour as some of the recipes online suggested, and others just didn't seem to be anything more than a yellow cake with a lemon filling. I found one in my Mom's Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook that was a triple layer cake. It wasn't very lemony because of the lemon filling and lemon frosting, I am sure, so we doubled the zest for the main batch and hoped it would be enough without having to worry about having too much liquid. We sampled one of the sunken layers to make sure it was actually edible, and also to make sure it tasted a little more like lemon than before, and OH! MY! I think I've found a new favorite!!! You can find the recipe here, but remember to double the zest if you are just making the cake by itself!