First off was the Chartier's 50th wedding anniversary on Valentine's Day. I was asked to replicate their original wedding cake. No problem! Then the pictures arrived. They were overexposed, which made the white cake against the white bride and background very hard to see details. Were those little sharks circling the edge of the cake? What were the little ladder things between the tiers? How did they make so much stuff stick out at right angles from the cake's surface? Who's idea was it to have forty nine million little forks laid out on the table? How cute is that?
Then I started looking for a center supported square cake stand. I did actually find one in China that wasn't too far off, but they wanted a fortune for it. I ended up taking my round center support cake stand from Wilton, boring holes in the center of my set of square cake plates (thanks to my tool rich hubby!), and flipping each square plate upside down so the little feet didn't show and gluing them to the round plates. Since I was only serving 100 I needed to only use the top tiers of the center cake stand, but this caused a new problem The feet are connected permanently to the bottom tier, and each tier tapers to a center point which would make the whole cake like a giant wobbly top. I ended up covering a cookie tin with gold fabric and hot gluing it to the bottom tier plate. It worked!
Now for making the cake itself. The tiers were different flavors, with the top two being the couple's favorite of carrot cake. First I made a million gum paste and royal icing parts. I made hearts with lacy centers, little beaded ladders, shark fins, and a whole assortment of little sharp and lacy looking things for the decorations. I baked, filled, and frosted all the tiers, cut the centers out to allow for the cake stand, then packed it all in the car. Did I mention that it started to snow like crazy as soon as I filled the car? That by the time I got to the church there were a couple of inches of show everywhere? And that in a brilliant stroke of irony, it had snowed just like this on their wedding day 50 years before? It was wonderful. I set up the four tiers then started putting all the fancy decorations all over it. Quite a few broke but that's why I made a million extras. In the end it all looked pretty darn close to the original -- down to the forks on the table. They were thrilled, and I had a lot of fun creating this cake for them.
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