Has anyone ever attempted/succeeded in making their own wedding cake?

Question

We ordered two large sheet cakes for all of the guests from Costco (low budget wedding) and I was thinking of getting a 3 tiered cake pan set....making the cake myself and using the frosting from a bakery. the frosting would be white or red If it is white i am going to put roses around the cake where the layers meet and i have a very cute cake topper to put on top. if the frosting is red (i dont even know if thats possible lol) i would use white daisies. any suggestions/ideas/opinions? please dont say to have it done professionally. we cannot afford that and our wedding is in 12 days :-) thank you so much!

Answer 1

I made a wedding cake for a friend once.

It wasn't huge or super elaborate or anything.

I'm a culinary arts student now, so I've always liked cooking, so it was pretty easy for me (Although, I was still in high school at the time)

Have you ever done any cake decorating before? If you have, it shouldn't be to hard. The most important thing (in my opinion) is the crumb coat. Cover the first layer with icing, then put on the second, and ice it, then the last and ice it (or if you have more tiers, put them all on, icing in between)  then put it in the fridge untill the icing gets firm. Then you can put on another layer of icing, and you wont' have any crumbs in it.

I think you should make the icing yourself. Don't buy the canned stuff or anything, because the consistancy won't be right. Or you will at least have to add more powedered suga, but making your own works better in my opinion, you get better conrol of the consistancy.  Just get a buttercream recipe off the internet all it is is butter sugar, and flavoring. And if you want to make the icing red, I suggest buying gel food coloring. If you just use the stuff in the little bottles in the store it will be pink, not red. You can get that and cake decorating tips and all from a craft store like AC Moore, or Michaels.

If you know what you're doing it shouln't be too hard.

If youre worried about s******g it up or anything, you could always get one from a grocery store. They're usually much cheaper, although less elaborate and customizable.  

Answer 2

You need some experience to make a wedding cake.  The proportions need to be right and you usually have to use dowels down through the cake to support the upper layers, so in addition to buying the pans, you need dowels, layer plates, a decorative flat plate that will support the weight of the cake, and some experience in using a crumb icing, how to smooth frosting (you need a special spatula for that - metal, dipped in very hot water), pastry bags, decorative frosting tips, and so on... I took a cake decorating course years ago and have made 4 wedding cakes over the years - and the last one was mine.  The plus to making your own is they're usually fresh and delicious - at least mine are!

Answer 3

I'm sorry honey, but I was too afraid to make my own wedding cake!

It sounds like you're doing everything perfectly fine, but maybe you and your {soon to be} hubby can invite a few friends over to help, and then keep in in a cool, dry place until the big day.

You can also visit: http://weddings.about.com/od/weddingcake...

Good Luck and Congrats!

Answer 4

my mom made mine and my brothers cakes. she got those cake stands that was mentioned earlier and just white cake mix and a jar of frosting. she mixed the frosting with crisco and food color and sugar to stretch it out. mixed it with a mixer and viola. with mine she used the 3 cake pans and little towers from hobby lobby. u can by fake daises to put into the cake, just cut around them. definitely practice with foam cake pieces so u know what to show the person who u may to in charge to do ur cake while u get ready. congrats and good luck!!!!  

Answer 5

I wish you best of luck. I'm going to be making my own. Of course, my major is Culinary Arts and I'm going to be a cake decorator when I'm done. If you go to this website http://weddings.about.com/od/weddingcake... it may help! If not, just type in Bake your own wedding cake into google there are so many sites that will help. Best wishes, Krissy!

Answer 6

Hi, I made my sisters wedding cake and it was fantastic. I used a 3 tiered cake pan set 10 inch, 8 inch and 6 inch. all fruit cakes, marzipaned them then added the icing that you can roll out in an ivory colour, added some ribbon in her colours on each tier and made my own topper, hot pink feathers and gold wire and diamantes the gold wire I shaped into flower shape and glued diamante in middle. stacked each cake on top of the other making sure I doweled the cake as well.

Answer 7

I would suggest a wedding cupcake "cake". it's much easier to put the frosting into decorator bags with large tips to frost each cupcake. The only issue is that you cannot have the cake cutting ceremony.

If you're h**l bent on making the cake here are some tips:

1. Make the cake rounds ahead of time using duncan hines butter recipe and then wrap tightly in wax paper and then in foil and freeze.

2. Make your own frosting, - it's really simple. It's just crisco (I know, yuk, but that's how you make butter cream) and use wilton's meringue powder which can be bout at a craft shop or online, some vanilla and some evaporated milk or half and half. Get the recipe in a wilton cookbook or online.

3. Day before the wedding make a very loose frosting to put avery thin layer of icing over each cake round first which will cover all the crumbs. Let that set and frost as usually so you won't have any crumbs showing through.

4. Invest in some professional tips and bags.

I would normally tell you to do a practice cake but it doesn't look like you'll have time.

Answer 8

Not that I have ever heard of. Even professionals know better and leave it to the pros. You do not have to have a tiered cake, and if you are going the DIY route, you really don't want to. Wedding cakes are constructed completely differently than birthday cakes, and unless you have years of experience assembling them, your wedding is not the first time to attempt that if you have never done it before.  

Answer 9

I've seen someone do a very nice cake using cake stands. Maybe you could get something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/3-SWIVELING-SILVER...

It made the cake a lot easier to transport - plus you didn't have to worry about stacking them. She just frosted them, then added some fresh flowers on the top. It looked really beautiful.

If you don't have time to get the cake stand then I think that adding roses where the layers meet would work really well.

I think that doing the cake yourself can be done - definitely try and practice before...and maybe consider a two-tier cake instead of three-tier...only because it's hard to transport it.

Good luck!  

Answer 10

I wouldn't do it personally but there seems to be a great deal of sites that help you through it. If I had to do it myslef I would do cupcakes, that's just me. Here are two sites I think you should look at if you choose to do it yourself afterall.

http://hubpages.com/hub/ownweddingcake

http://www.chiff.com/articles/wedding-ca...