Crazy in Buffalo: Cake Making Madness

The cakes are done! I repeat, the cakes are done!!! I feel like maybe Ben and Cora feel more comfortable in their own house now. This mama's stress level was through the flipping roof. Thank goodness, I have an amazing daughter (who is actually quite helpful) and a very understanding and supportive husband. If not for those two things, I definitely could not have made it through this week.

So, the wedding cake. After initially wanting a very smooth buttercream look, the bride decided she wanted something a bit more modern. Which I was ecstatic about, because every time I try to get my buttercream "fondant smooth," I fail. It's my Waterloo, I will never prevail. So, textured buttercream is my friend.

We had the flavors nailed down for months. I got all of the cakes baked last weekend and they spent the week wrapped up and chilling in the fridge. So all I had to do on Friday and Saturday was to make the buttercream, level the layers, fill and stack the three tiers as level as possible, cover in buttercream, texture, assemble the support structure, stack the cakes, purchase the flowers and arrange the flowers. Yeah, that's all.

Oh, making the buttercream. I splurged and ordered high-ratio shortening to use instead of Crisco. Crisco long ago did away with trans fat in its recipe. That's all well and good for your arteries, but it sucks for smooth, tasty buttercream. The local bakers' supply here was unfortunately out of stock, so I ordered from an online store. I will NEVER use Crisco again! This stuff is amazing. I'm pretty sick of looking at it though, because I made 13 batches of buttercream for these cakes. Thirteen!!!

Anyhoodle, I left myself plenty of time and I must say, this is the best I've done on achieving nice, straight, level tiers. It certainly helped that I also ordered a fancy, new support structure. You can find them at http://www.cakestackers.com/. I cannot rave enough. That thing stood straight and tall all night long. And it easily weighed 60 pounds. I couldn't even carry it to the car (got a bum wrist) and Ben struggled. It took two guys to carry it into the reception venue.

Alrighty, enough rambling, you all probably want to see pictures.

This is the cake pre-flowers.

She just wanted fresh flowers, so I went around to some local stores on Friday afternoon and found some things I hoped would compliment the bouquets and decorations at the reception. My first attempt at flower arranging! No pressure...

Here it is, fully assembled at my place.

And here it is at the reception (which was totally awesome - mini steak hoagies during the cocktail hour, need I say more??).

And here is the happy couple - Congrats Liam and Meghan!

So that was Saturday. Today (Sunday) I went to work on Cora's cake. And here it is. Flower shaped bottom tier with chocolate and yellow cake, and a yellow cake "strawberry house."