Happy Thanksgiving! Today I am thankful that I'm not making that darn wedding cake. Yes, I think it may have scarred me for life. I keep saying it was the first and last wedding cake I will ever make...we'll see if someone can sucker me into it again. But all that said, I do owe you the final installment of my Faking Fancy Wedding Cakes(?) adventure...
It was the day before the wedding. The wedding cakes were baked, the icing was mixed and the test cake was a breeze to assemble. Things were looking up for the big wedding cake assembly day, until I remembered that the cakes were still in the freezer...ooops - I blame it on the wine the night before at the rehearsal dinner. But it was still only early so I took them out and they were good to go an hour later.
To keep the stress to a minimum on the day of the wedding, we decided to assemble the cake at the venue (a small local brewery) and simply place it in the cooler on site. That way we didn't have to deal with the stress of transporting it. Besides, things were stressful enough seeing how we were being hit by a Tropical Storm, and there was still one guest coming from Ontario who hadn't arrived. After many blustery, rain soaked trips back and fourth from the car to the house, we were finally all packed and ready to go to the brewery.
Of course, what we packed into the car needed to be transported into the brewery, which meant we were in for another wind and rain beating. But despite the rain and wind, it wasn't too uncomfortable because it was warm and HUMID. As we entered the brewery, the humidity outside was amplified inside - trouble! We made our way up to the room only to discover it was not air conditioned. In fact, the entire brewery was not air conditioned. Plus, they had me in the same room that their brewery tour stopped in...not a good scene.
After barely icing the bottom layer, my icing quickly became a soupy slop and it became nearly impossible to get the icing to stay onto the cake. After a quick scramble, we managed to find the only room that had some form of air conditioning which was a tiny office with an even tinier portable air conditioning unit. Hovered around the air conditioner, I slowly piped on the icing while JS followed quickly behind with a spreader to keep the icicng from falling off. After the messiest icing job in the world, we threw it in the fridge to harden. Once the icing had hardened and stabilized on the cake, I quickly took off the excess icing with a hot knife. After a few choice words, we finished the third tier and got the heck out.
The next morning I went down to the brewery with my father to add the flowers...and to see if the cake had survived. Thankfully it had made it through the night and I added the final few touches. It took me a little longer than I expected, but I managed to finish decorating the cake, prep for the wedding and make it to the pre-wedding photo shoot because..did I forget to tell you...I was in the wedding party too!
When the ceremony was over, my Mom was hesitant on bringing the cake out before the cake cutting ceremony because of the heat. But, as I said to her, there was NO WAY I was NOT having it out for people to see after all my slave work. So we put the cake on display and it survived in the heat. And so ends my first and last wedding cake I plan on making in this lifetime. Big THANKS to
Donna McMullin for taking photographic evidence of my labour. And although it was quite lovely, I really believe that cupcakes are the way to go and are so much cuter!
