I knew I wanted to stack the cakes. I think that look is so pretty. Aunt Sue is not crazy about stacking because things can go wrong. I have been doing a lot of research on decorating cakes the past year, and bought I subscription to My Cake School.com. This lady and her mom used to own a bakery. She now just bakes for personal friends. But I love the videos and the forum where you can ask questions.
I had seen a tiered cake using dogwood flowers twice before over the the years. One was on the cover of a Martha Stewart Weddings magazine years ago. The other was in a Southern Living magazine. I found the Southern Living one online and read the directions. I did not use the recipe from Southern Living. I used a recipe from Mycakeschool.com. The Southern Living recipe said to make about 70 of the dogwood flowers. Many years ago I thought I wanted to make gum paste flowers and bought some cutters and molds. I bought a dogwood mold and cutter and never used it but still had it. I pulled that out and bought some gum paste and started making them. They didn't look too good. I then found a dogwood impression mold at Michael's and used that. It's made by Wilton. That made the flower much prettier. I then bought a DVD from Nicholas Lodge about make gum paste southern flowers. It had a dogwood section. He has another dogwood cutter and mold/impression thing. I bought two of his cutters but not the impression mold. I may get that sometime because I like it better than the ones I used recently. I also made some little leaves but just kept them white in color.
I started making about 10 flowers at a time. Took me about an hour. Then they had to dry over night. Then a couple of them would break or would not get completely dry. I then figured out I needed to let them dry overnight and the next morning put them in the oven with just the light on, no other heat. I left them in there a couple of hours. This seemed to dry them completely. I think the more I practice the more I'll learn about the gum paste. If you roll it too thin it can break, if you roll it too thick, it doesn't dry soon enough. So it took a while to get 70 flowers made. Then came the time to paint them with petal dust. That was not as easy as thought it would be. I thought I could just paint them with vodka mixed with the dust and it would be easy. Well, it didn't look right. So I decide to just paint them dry. Well, I had so many to paint that I just sat at my desk because I have a TV there and I'd watch TV while painting. It's also hot in my office, so I have a fan that is attached to my bookcase above my desktop...and even though I had it pointed in a different direction, that petal dust was all over the my desk. It was messy.
Now I started baking the layers for the cakes a few weeks ahead of time. I needed to layers of six inches and two layers of 10 inches and two layers of 14 inches. That way there was enough room after icing the cake that the dogwoods could sit on the cake layers. I wanted each layer to be exactly two inches high, and I had two inch high pans. So that means I needed to put a collar around the pan so that I could fill up the pan almost to the top. That allows the cake to bake above the rim and not spill over. Then you can cut off the top of the cake to make it even after it's done.
Well, that 14 inch cake pan was big! I had to make the cake recipe twice for each layer of that size. Took a lot of batter. Also, it took up the oven! I don't know if I could have gotten a 16 inch pan in my oven. I learned on the cake forum that if you put a rose nail in the middle of your pan (pans 10 inches or larger) that your cakes will get done in the middle and you won't have such a hard time not burning your cake trying to get the inside done along with the outside. It worked! I took that cake out of the oven and let it rest. Then I turned it out onto a cooling rack without putting any towel or paper down first. I let it cool some more. Now, that's a big cake layer...14 inches is not fun to handle flipping over. I went to flip it back over after it had gotten cool and the whole top of that cake stuck to the cooling rack and bust the layer up really bad. Oh boy...I was not happy. Means I had to bake it again meaning two more recipes of the ingredients and all that time and clean up.
So I went ahead and made the two layers of the six inch and the 10 inch cakes. I learned if you wrap them up while still a bit warm, they will hold the moisture better and taste good. I think that is true, too. I knew I didn't have room for a 14 inch layer in my freezer, so I had to make the 14 inch layers two days before the event.
In the past we have used the bucket of Wilton buttercream icing. It works well, but does not taste all that great. So with this cake, I decided to make the icing myself. I bought some high ratio shortening instead of using regular Crisco. This allows for a better crust with your icing. You want you icing to crust so that you can smooth it out. Also, if you live where it's hot, you are flirting with disaster if you do a lot of butter in your buttercream if you need to transport it or if the event where the cake will be is hot.
I don't even know how many recipes of icing I made. It was a lot. I ran out of a 3 pound container of high ratio shortening so I had to use regular Crisco on the six inch layers. I could not tell a difference in the icing myself. I did put extra almond flavoring in the icing. Makes such a difference in the taste.
I bought some bubble tea straws to put in the bottom tier and the middle tier to support the layers so they would not sink and bust the cake open. The straws are super easy to cut to size. Aunt Sue put the icing on the layers and put the borders on it. We drove it to the church and put it together. Then we put the flowers and leaves around it. Just attached them with a bit of buttercream.
I was happy to have that cake done. It was a little stressful since I had never made gum paste flowers before. I really enjoy making them and hope to do some different ones in the future. We had someone ask us at the anniversary party to make a cake for their daughter's graduation in December. There is a gum paste flower I want to make for that, so I'll be practicing.
I have to say that I see why wedding cakes cost so much money. That was a lot of time and lots of ingredients. And it was heavy!
