Headline: Cake narrowly misses causing a labor strike

On July 26, 2008 My sister-in-law (my husband's only sibling) was married in a nearby town. Everything looked wonderful and went as smoothly as weddings can go, not too many things went wrong. They had a five tier fondant covered cake, complete with a handmade cake topper. There were the standard oohs and ahhs over the cake, and the guests seemed to enjoy it once the eating commenced.

Personally, I thought it stunk. Or more accurately, I was tired of smelling it, since I was the one who was asked to make it.

Even sitting here thinking about ALL the work that went into that cake still terrifies me. I had never made a stacked cake more than 8" and two layers that used more than one cake mix at a time. The top two tiers are 'fake cakes' (Styrofoam instead of cake). I had six months to learn EVERYTHING I needed to know to have it even vaguely like something I'd call a wedding cake. I have done cakes before, I usually have fun doing them, but as I found out, wedding cakes are a whole other beast than 'simple' Birthday cakes.

I had never before:
Made the correct consistency of Royal Icing to make flowers
Made icing flowers most especially roses
Baked a 10", 12", 14", or sheet cake (11"x15") all in 3" pans
Split each cake in half to add the filling
Made frosting that spread onto the cake smoothly
Frosted a cake with exceedingly smooth edges
Used fondant in anything
Made full figurines
Rolled out fondant
Colored fondant
Created fondant clothes

...And yet I did all of this and more. I am still surprised at what I accomplished, and the sheer amount of stuff I learned in 6 months. Towards the end it was 16+ hour days (for two weeks) of what felt like constant Finals. But I do have to say, I'm not going to do it again anytime soon.






This is the frosting on the cake before I had to add the fondant.