Wedding Cake: The End

Saturday was the day of the wedding, and I spent most of it putting the final touches on the cake and assembling and decorating it at the reception site. There are several good reasons to transport the tiers separately, not the least of which is the weight: the assembled cake weighed in at a beastly 58 pounds.

But, prior to stacking comes one of my favorite of the techniques I have learned- how to make the frosting smooth. Maybe you noticed that the spatula strokes were still visible on the frosted cakes from yesterday, but there is a solution. Once the frosting has dried just a bit, take pieces of parchment paper, hold them against the frosting, and just give the cake a gentle massage with your hands. Now, as heavy as these tiers are, it's not enough to neatly stack them on top of one another and hope for the best. There are actually little dowel rods that go in the cake layers and are cut to the height of just below the frosting, creating a support for the tier above. I used six rods in the large cake and four in the middle one. So, there I was in my sugar-dusted apron, sawing away at dowel rods on the downstairs workbench. (Not quite the image that usually accompanies the thought of cake baking.) To measure the height, stick in one rod and mark it with a pencil, then remove. Mark as many as you'll need to the same height, then pull out the saw. Besides providing support, this also helps the tiers look even, as the dowel rods are all the same height even if the cake top isn't. A little icing fills in the gaps once the layers are on, and no one will ever know.
Actually driving the cakes to the reception is one of the most stressful parts. I took my parents' Buick, trusting its larger trunk and smoother suspension and knowing that other drivers would expect that kind of vehicle to drive so slowly. Then, it was just a matter of stacking the tiers, filling in any gaps, and smoothing the sides. Using real ribbon and fresh flowers is easier than making them frosting, and I think it typically looks better.

There were two main challenges in the final stages- greedy fingers and grease stains. The bride's little brother was flitting about, wanting to be as close as possible the sugar high that the frosting offered him. Anxious to avert disaster, I resorted to bribery. He didn't cross the boundary of the edge of the table, and I gave him a spoonful of frosting before we went to the wedding. The other challenge solved itself. I noticed the splotches from the fat in the frosting only after I put on the green ribbon. I tried two layers, but you can see it didn't help. For the top one, I thought to cut a strip of wax paper to place under the ribbon, but I was sure the green ribbon was lost to blotchiness. But, by the time we returned to the reception site following the wedding, it has seeped so evenly that it looked spotless again.

One hour and 45 minutes before the wedding, the last flower was laid in place. And, voila: