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Wedding Cake for the final cake lesson

Cake Decorating Lesson 8: Wedding Cake

Our final cake decorating lesson is to make a two-tier wedding cake.  A wedding cake sounds very challenging and exciting, right?  Prior to the lesson, our teacher gave us a detailed list of instructions, what to prepare and bring for class.  For very elaborated wedding cakes, we will need cake stands, boards etc.  Since we are beginners and leisure bakers, the basic things we need to bring are just two sponge cakes (different sizes), flowers/fruits etc to decorate the cake, decorating tools and of course, bring along our fabulous ideas!

First, let's do a quick recap ....

Here are the cakes that I have done for my cake decorating lessons (tag with label: cake decorating class).  As a home-baker with no professional training in baking, I'm really proud of my achievement!  Even though this is a leisure baking class, I have spent hours to research, plan and prepare for these lessons.  I wanted each lesson to be different, so I experimented with different fillings, flavours for the cakes.  There are also many "first-times" - first time to learn how to cream a cake properly; first time to pipe a basket weaving design on a cake;  first time to make royal icing roses that left my hands aching for 2 days; first time to bake finger sponge; first time to make a cut-out cake.  I felt like a school-going student again!  

A big THANK YOU to our instructor, Mr Richard Goh, for your sincerity and willingness to share your knowledge on baking.  It is a blessing to meet and learn from you.

Lesson 1: Green Tea Strawberry Cake

Lesson 2: Rose Basket Lemon Cake

                   

  

Lesson 3: Blueberry Fresh Cream Cake

Lesson 4: Butterfly Strawberry Yogurt Cake

                    

                 

Lesson 5: Barbie Doll Cake (Licca)

Lesson 7: Longevity Peach Cake

Preparation for the final lesson ...

I have been baking sponge cakes for my cake decorating lessons.  Since this is the last lesson, I decided to attempt something different ..... rum-marinated dried fruits butter cake and decorated with marshmallow fondant (MMF).  We learnt how to wrap marzipan for the longevity peach cake, so covering the butter cake with fondant is basically an extension of what I had learnt in the earlier lesson.

Things to get ready:

* Two butter cakes (8" and 6" cakes) - you can use 9"/7", 6"/4" or any other sizes.  

* 700g MMF (you will have some leftovers)

* Some butter cream or you can use jam (act as a glue to stick the fondant on the cakes)

* 3 to 4 bubble-tea straws

* Cake board (same size or slightly smaller than the smaller 6" cake that I'm using - I DIY the cake board by wrapping aluminium foil over a thick cardboard)

Rum-marinated Dried Fruits Butter cake

Rum-marinated Dried Fruits Cake

I marinated 300g mixed dried fruits & chopped dried apricots with about 100g of rum and 3 tbsp rum flavour.  Cover the marinated fruits and leave it at room temperature for a few days before using.  I kept it in the fridge for about 2 weeks.

I used the same butter cake recipe for making the walnut butter cake, but made the following changes:

* Reduce sugar at (A) to 50g fine sugar + 50g molasses sugar.
* Reduce sugar at (B) to 70g fine sugar + 50g molasses sugar
* Reduce sugar at (C) to 80g fine sugar
* Replace 170g Nestle cream with 1.5 tbsp condensed milk.
* Replace the chopped walnut and chocolate chips with the marinated dried fruits.

Same preparation method, except to increase the baking time to about 90 - 100 minutes at 160C preheated oven, as I baked the cakes in 8" and 6" round pans, instead of making one 10" cake as the recipe is meant for.  My cakes are very tall, about 3" height each.  This recipe should also work for making a 9" cake and a 7" cake.

Leave the cakes to cool completely before covering with fondant.

Marshmallow Fondant

(yields about 700g MMF)

250g plain marshmallows (use the mini ones, easier to melt)
2 tbsp water
About 450g to 600g icing sugar (if it's not a newly-opened pack, sift the icing sugar before using)
1 tsp vanilla essence (optional)
Few drops of food colouring or gel (I added a little pink food gel for a pale pink coloured fondant)
Some Criso shortening (to grease your hands to prevent the fondant from sticking onto your hands)

Method:

1) Place the marshmallows and water in a microwavable bowl.  Heat on high for 30 seconds.  Remove and stir.  Heat for another 15 to 20 seconds if the marshmallows have not melted completely.

2) Stir the melted marshmallow to a smooth paste (I stirred with a pair of wooden chopsticks) and add in the vanilla essence.  If you intend to have only one colour for the fondant, add the colouring now (easier than having to knead the colour to the dough later). 

3) Add about 1/3 of the icing sugar and stir.  Continue to add icing sugar and stir until it looks like a dough.

4) Grease your hands with Criso and knead the dough.  Continue to add icing sugar and knead till the dough is pliable.  

5) Wrap the fondant with cling wrap and leave it for at least 2 to 3 hours before rolling out. 

Making the fondant cake

To assemble the cake:

1) Level the cakes for a flat, even surface.  Turn the cakes upside down.  

2) Cover the cakes with a thin layer of butter cream or jam, and leave it in the fridge for the cream to harden a little.

3) Dust your hands, table-top and rolling pin with icing sugar.  Take about 2/3 of the fondant dough and gently knead and roll it out into a thin sheet (about 2 to 3 mm thick).  Move and dust the fondant sheet with icing sugar as you roll it, to prevent the sheet from sticking on the table-top.  The fondant sheet must be big enough to cover the whole cake with extra allowance.  

4) Take out the bigger 8" cake from the fridge and carefully place the fondant sheet over the cake.  Smooth the top and sides with your hands.  Trim the excess fondant and tuck the fondant underneath the cake.  Set aside.

5) Roll out the remaining fondant and cover the smaller cake.  Set aside.

6) Insert the bubble-tea straws into the centre of the bigger 8" cake.  Note the height and cut off the excess straws so that they are of the same height as the cake (these straws act as support pillars, to prevent the top-layered cake from sinking into the bottom-layered cake).

7) Place a cardboard on top of the bigger cake and sit the smaller cake on top of the cardboard (cardboard size to be the same or smaller than the top-layered cake)

8) Decorate the cake as desired.  

Happy Valentine's Day

I lined the cakes with ribbons (use a little butter cream to stick the ends together), made some fondant ribbon roses with the remaining fondant, placed a pair of wedding bears on top of the cake and inserted a big paper-heart topper at the top.  I think this cake is good for Valentine's Day too... with just a week to Feb 14.

And to my fellow classmates at the cake decorating class, it's really nice to meet all of you.  Keep in touch, ok (you know who you are ^_^).  And here are the pictures of some of the wedding cakes that we decorated in class:

I will be submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #16: Fun with Fondant! (February 2012), hosted by Yvonne of iceamericanos.