For my long-time friend Jeff, the May long weekend was a long time coming. Wedding day! While he and his bride-to-be were decorating their venue, organizing table arrangements and picking up flowers, I was at home, figuring out how to time the construction of their wedding cake with Lacey's naps. Luckily Lacey's naps are a bit more predictable now, so I baked the cake during her morning nap, and made the icing and decorated during her afternoon nap.
I've said before that usually I feel pretty stressed out about making cakes-- one mistake, and you ruin the whole thing! However, I was looking forward to making their cake because I knew it was more of a formality for them (for a photo or two), rather than the centerpiece of their wedding. At one point they weren't even sure if they wanted a cake. So, in other words, if I seriously messed it up, I knew they wouldn't be heartbroken.
Gwen and Jeff sent me several photos to give me some ideas of what they were thinking for cake designs. They knew what their cake toppers were going to look like (Lego people), so that was a no-brainer.
And the cake that stood out to me the most was this one:
It was simple and fun, and just a little bit quirky-- adjectives I would use to describe Gwen and Jeff. It seemed like a good fit.
Technically, I started the cake months in advance-- that is, if you count order the SPRINKLES!
Lavender, lemon yellow, mint green, coral and teal! All the colours of spring, wrapped up in to one cheerful little bundle!
I started by adding a tablespoon of each of the sprinkles into a dish, and giving them a good mix. Then I whipped up the ingredients for a white cake, and separated them into three six inch cake pans.
At this point, I searched on You Tube for, "How to make a naked cake", and was not disappointed by the plethora of instructive videos that came to my aid.
Initially I was a bit worried, because the video I watched said the best cake to use was dense and moist cake. "Don't use light and crumbly cake" it said.... Whoops... My cake was light and crumbly...
However, this turned out to not be an issue, because instead of regular butter cream, I made swiss meringue butter cream, which is lighter, fluffier, and MUCH easier to frost and smooth a cake with.
I stacked up the cake layers, frosting evenly in between, and then used an angled spatula to smooth out the frosting on top. You might ask, why can't I just use a knife to smooth out the icing on the top? The answer is, you can.
Next, I added small amounts of frosting to the sides of the cake, and used the angled spatula to scrape off any excess frosting. At this point, if I had been using regular butter cream frosting, I probably would have shaved off half of my crumbly cake. But the smoothness of the swiss meringue butter cream allowed me to smooth the edges of the cake down nicely.
The part that was the most fun was applying sprinkles. Basically, I held the cake platter at an angle over the sink, and threw sprinkles at it. They stuck to the frosting without any issue, and it allowed for me to get a more event coating of sprinkles. The only dicey part was when I held the cake at too high of an angle, and it started separating from the plate! But never fear, disaster was averted!
The important thing to note here, is that the Lego people LOOK like Gwen and Jeff. It's fantastic. And it makes me happy just looking at them!
Now came transportation. I held the cake in my lap for over an hour while we drove to the wedding.
When I arrived, I added the topper and banner, and BAM! Wedding cake complete. It fit in perfectly with the rest of Jeff and Gwen's decor.
Jeff, Gwen, I am more happy for you than words can express. I'm honoured that you asked me to make your wedding cake. You two are a wonderful couple, and I hope your future together is full of love, laughter and just a teensy bit of lunacy, to keep things interesting.
