Can a mere mortal attempt to make her own simple wedding cake?

lynnmfrank

We just went to our first cake tasting yesterday and can't believe that we could be shelling out $500 to feed cake to 130 guests!   My bloodpressure hit the roof when I found out $100 of ithe bill had nothing to do with the cake contents. 

I have a copy of my mother's Farm Journal Cookbook from the late 1950's with a recipe and instructions for making a layered wedding cake, so I realize that sometime in the past, mere mortals did attempt this feat in their own kitchens. Just wondering if anyone has attempted it and if they have tips they can share. 

PLEASE don't reply if you want to chide me for not making the same choice that you did--I'm not you and my choices may be different than yours.  What I am is a capable home baker who does have a clue about the level of committment involved here.  Just looking for some constructive discussion.

AbbeyS2011

I think you can do it if you have the talent and the patience to decorate it.

Get yourself a cake decoration set - they have them at wal-mart or you may be able to get one from a Goodwill.

Practice what designs (if any) you would like for the cake, including making the size you want.

If you mess up you can always try again, and you can eat your mistakes!

If I had the steady hand I would, but I do not, so I will be at the mercy of the bakeries. 

FI had a fit too about prices when I was looking at the grocery stores bakeries - I hear you!

Best of Luck and post some pics of your creation!

kaesha

It's not impossible. I think the only thing you have to ask yourself is about the time-cost pay off. How much will the hours you spend working on it be worth?

If you can bake the cakes ahead of time and freeze them, that would be helpful. I think really the question is the icing. How much of your time (and when) will that take?

I keep hoping people will come back and post about their cake-baking experiences... but there hasn't been anyone yet! Hopefully someone will chime in soon.

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

Your decorating doesn't have to be that fancy. You can use buttercream, or even regular frosting. My cake just had silk leaves:





You can also use silk flowers or have your florist deliver fresh flowers the day-of.

For the number of guests you have, I think you'll be fine. Especially if you do the layers in advance and freeze them.

patches66

I made my brothers wedding cake. It wasn't that bad.  I bought a tall tier cake stand and did 4 layers for him.  You can make them 2 weeks in advance.  Bake the cake, put buttercream on top for crumb layer and wrap tighly with saran wrap and put in airtight container.  2 days before wedding take out and frost it.  I then put it bake in the freezer because I had to travel 4 hours with it and didn't want it moving in the car.  Everyone told me it was the best cake they've ever eaten.  If you want the recipe email me pdoyle@centurytel.net.  I did a chocolate with chocolate mousse and White sour cream with strawberry filling.

ivyrose13

Give yourself plenty of time to do it, and if you want to do all the fancy piping (it's easy) try doing some cakes/cookies between now and then. Christmas is the perfect time to practice piping, because you can make snowflakes!

Anyways, PM me if you have any questions, my mom has been frosting cakes forever, and about two years ago I started decorating cupcakes. My best recommendation for you is to go to Micheal's, technically any craft store would do, but I find that Micheal's has the best selection. The brand you want is Wilton. They are the best, and literally the people who wrote the book on cake decorating. They have several "Learn at Home" books, they are really good and I highly recommend them. 

slojen

I had a girlfriend do mine.  She used round cake pans and chocolate and carrot cake recipes and then she made fonit to cover it.  We also bought some chocolate transfer sheets to decorate with and we used ribbon and flowers as well.  I made my own cake topper too.  It looked great!  It was only the second time she'd ever done fondit.  Make a sample cake first!

I Want Cake

It's entirely possible, and if you want to make it even easier on yourself, you could do just one real tier and use stryfoam for some fake tiers, since you can get the shape just right and they're sturdy.  Then make some sheet cakes to serve everyone else with the same fillings as the real tier.  That'd take some of the pressure off you for the baking part, at least, since the sheet cakes don't need to be decorated.

I'm in your area and tried cakes at 5 different places.  What I'm getting is really detailed (full hand pieced mosaic on 4 tiers), and I think my lowest quote was about $500, but the cake tasted awful and no part of it was handmade except the decoration.

Have you asked your venue if you're allowed to bring your own cake that you baked?  A lot of places in the area don't allow it for liability reasons.

marissa_claire

It's possible, just usually not recommended. 

Have you looked at more people?  I would personally try to get more quotes from other bakers before jumping into that option.

RebeccaB88

I am also a very capable home baker who can make almost anything, and I wouldn't ever consider doing it.  Not because I don't think I can do a good job, but because I'd rather spend my time doing other wedding projects, spending time with family and friends in town for the wedding, being with my fiance, and thinking about being with him for the rest of my life.  Not stressing about getting the cake done.

However, some brides have done it themselves.  If you have a Michaels or Hobby Lobby near you, take a beginners cake decorating class, to give yourself the basics.  Go for a very simple look.  Order some flowers for the top.  Keep it small and reasonable.  And definitely make a few practice cakes.

ambermorley

This one of my favorite cakes in the blog world, and I think it has a beautiful homemade look to it. Probably not terribly hard to recreate:


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I think the homemade look is very popular at wedding lately, even when it isn't hand-done and actually quite expensive.

I would try to recruit some help. It is going to be a busy and emotional weekend and you'll need some support if something goes wrong!

lynnmfrank

First, thanks for the encouragement and great ideas from everyone!   As it turns out, my sister has done a few wedding cakes for freinds and has volunteered to do a simple two-layer cake for us.  I just picked up the ribbon we'll be using for the trim each layer base and some beautiful bead-garland we'll be drapping the cake with.  Next I'm working on hunting down a cake plate or pedestal and we'll decide on square or round depending upon what we find.

Slogan, I love the idea of doing the top tier out of foam--great suggestion!  Ensures some creative control and gives us less to do while making sure that it doesn't weigh down on the base layer too much. I'll talk this over with my sister. 

In response to "I Want Cake," we are holding our reception in our building's community room  (offered to us as a gift!) so bringing in a homemade cake isn't an issue.  We have talked to other bakers and are hiring Byerly's to do simple sheet cakes that will feed our 130 guests for under $100.00.  Now that my sis is stepping in, I'm liking the idea too much of having creative and economic control over our cake to persue having Byerly's do the fancy cake too. 

Thanks everyone!  I'll let you know how it turns out!

missymr

I'm glad your sister stepped in.

While making your own wedding cake isn't impossible, a cake cannot be made (well decorated) that far in advance and trying to do it yourself the day before the wedding would be adding a lot of stress to what I am expecting is already going to be a stressful time.

I made a wedding cake for a good friend a couple of years ago and it was a lot of fun. But I wouldn't want to try and make my own. Several people have asked if I am but no. I am toying with the idea of making the cupcakes for the candy bar we are having in lieu of favours. Everyone that knows me well knows that I am the cupcake queen. So far the quotes I've been given for cupcakes are outrageous ($2.50/cupcake!!!) and I don't want to pay that if I don't have to.

I can easily make 150 cupcakes, in several flavours, and ice them with help from my mother and bridesmaids the day before the wedding. The only problem for me is storage. We have a tiny tiny kitchen. I'm not sure where we'd keep 150 cupcakes.

So I will have to make a decision on that at some point.

And yes, we are having cake and cupcakes because I love cake. We are hoping our caterer however will allow us to replace the dessert course with a second appetizer or salad because dessert, and wedding cake and cupcakes and candy seems like overkill. Even to me.

mmady84

As a professional cake decorator, I am making my own wedding cake.  Im baking the cake layers 5 days ahead and feeze them, the next day take the cakes out an hour before getting them ready, fill them crumb coat them. the next day I start the fondant work and decorating...I can usually finish a wedding cake in 3 days but since its my own cake, Im giving myself the extra days just incase I get caught up with other wedding stuff! 

You can do it, just give yourself the time!