for what it's worth: June 2010

This is it! The first real wedding cake! It started last Wednesday with me making 4 batches of fondant (about 12 pounds!), wrapping them in plastic wrap and zip-loc bagging them. Thursday was baking day-- 3 twelve inch chocolate layers for the bottom tier, then the 10 inch, 8 inch, and 6 inch white cakes that would later get split into two layers each, then another 3 layer 6 inch cake for the bride and groom to cut standing alone. That is a lot of cake! Not to mention eggs! I had quite the little baking system going that day. The cakes were all loosely wrapped and boxed for the trip. I also had to pack up all the other paraphernalia that goes with being a mobile bakery-- all the cake decorating supplies, tools, frosting ingredients, mixer, cake boards, stands, etc. Plus we were bringing the punch, frozen in zip-loc bags. Here's all the gear for the kitchen waiting to be loaded up. (Our suitcases had to go on the roof!)

Friday we traveled with everything to Oklahoma. Everything survived the six hour trip, which was great. We were greeted with 100° weather, which was not great! After unloading everything at the hotel, we went to the church to do a dinner and help decorate for the reception. Jared made a dutch oven peach cobbler to go with dinner. It was awesome!

We stayed at a Marriott property in Broken Arrow about a half mile from the church. Luckily, we had a suite with an oven, full size microwave, sink, garbage disposer, and fridge. So we decided to do almost the entire cake at the hotel. After a quick breakfast in the morning, we were ready for our all-day cake challenge. I started making buttercream and just kept it coming all day!

Jared is the king of the crumb coat-- especially good with the new dry wall knife he picked up before we came!

All of the cakes had to be frosted first and then refrigerated.

Then the covering with fondant. Jared is also a whiz at kneading and rolling the fondant. I am taking a co-pilot role at this point!

We had cakes everywhere in the hotel room. It did smell really nice though!

After taking a break for lunch and once all the tiers were covered with fondant, we boxed everything up and took them to the church to finish decorating them.

Jared cut and put in all the dowels and got the cakes all stacked. Then I did the ribbon and pearl borders while he went to get the flowers from the florist.

Jared came back with all the flowers, including the ones that were going on the cake. We put those on and breathed a big sigh of relief!

The finished product: a four tier, fondant covered, ribbon bordered, pearl accented, rose crowned, labor of love. We also made them an additional 6 inch tier on a stand by itself for them to cut into easily. It was really special to be able to do this for Lisa and Brycen.