World of Karen: Homemade Wedding Cake Directions Easy and Cheap (Inexpensive) serves 125

Warning! This is quite a long post about cake decorating!!

Back in the winter, I went with Miranda, her mom, and some of her bridesmaids to the Raleigh Bridal Fair. We tasted dozens of wedding cakes. Most of them beautiful - some of them really good, some of them actually quite bad! The going price was about $4.75 - $5 PER SLICE!!! And, we didn't get the impression that a slice was actually very big either!

The idea of spending $625 for a cake just seemed crazy! So, of course I volunteered to make one. I guess you all know that I've never made a wedding cake before.....but I figured it couldn't be THAT hard! I will admit that seeing my brother (a chef) decorate a little anniversary cake for my in-law's 50th anniversary helped me have the confidence to say "I can do that!!".

Miranda said she wanted a simple cake, not all the "frilly" old-fashioned ruffles and roses. That's good, since I'm not really good with those things!

I made a sample cake for her to try back months and months ago. This is what it looked like - a general design she had picked out. This is the 6" topper, but just 2 layers.

Given the go-head, I purchased a set of Wilton pans - 14", 10", and 6" for $30 on eBay. I'm not going to count those in the cost because I will undoubtedly use them again. I had also gotten a 16" pan, but decided that was just too big for our purposes.

I also decided to use Pillsbury cake mixes. It's just so much easier to use a mix and the end product is very good. So, I'll get into the nitty-gritty now:

12 cake mixes -        $12 (on sale at Target for $1 each!)
36 eggs    -       $ 6
8 cups oil    -    $ 4
7 lbs butter    -       $ 14 (1 lb. blocks from Sam's Club)
14 lbs pwd sugar -    $ 11
Heavy cream -     $ 2
Almond Flavor - $ 6 (used 1/4 of big bottle McCormick from Sam's)
Board for supports - $ 1 (foam poster board from Michaels)
Dowels for support - $ 1
Electricity -    $ 10 (just an estimate for the "purist")
Labor $ 0 (with added LOVE)
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Total                        $67

Now for the process.....

Just thought I'd show you the pans - 14", 10" and 6".

I used the "nails" that you use to make icing rosettes to be imbedded in the batter of the larger cakes. It makes sure they heated evenly in the center.

I used 4 nails in the 14" pan, roughly centered and 3 nails in the 10" pan. I just sprayed them with Pam and mushed them down in the batter.

When you turn over the cake to remove it from the pan, the nails just very neatly pop out like they were never there. The center of the cake is exactly as done as the outer edges. I did not try to bake a cake without the nails, but I suspect that the center would not cook completely without them!

I put 2 complete cake mixes in each 14" pan. I baked the 10" and 6" layers together in the oven, spreading 2 complete cake mixes between them. If I were being really picky, I would have tossed about 1/4 of that batch of batter since the 10" and 6" layers were just a bit taller.

Since the cake was going to be so big and heavy, I had to put separators in between each layer. I could have bought plastic ones from the craft store, but I thought I could do it for pennies instead. I took a 99 cent piece of foam-backed poster board, cut it to fit each of the cake sizes, and simply covered it in a couple of layers of wax paper - taping it on the bottom. Then, the first layer of each size is placed directly on the "board" using just a bit of icing to glue it in place.

Now, you know I didn't bake the layers all in one day!!! It's nine different layers! After a layer was removed from the pan and mostly cooled, I triple-wrapped it in cellophane wrap and immediately put it in the freezer. The baking was accomplished over several days about a week before the wedding.

Then I spent several hours making most of the buttercreme frosting and storing in the fridge in tightly closed bowls AKA Tupperware.

I'll give the recipe - it's so incredibly simple - 1/2 lb butter (no Crisco!!!), 2 lbs powdered sugar, 1 tsp. Almond Flavoring, heavy creme til proper "creme-i-ness"!!

The real fun started on Thursday night before the Saturday afternoon wedding.....

Taking the cakes out of the freezer, I allowed them to thaw just enough to slice off the tops for a nice, flat cake. I put the trimmings in the freezer for some "dirt" dessert or truffles at a much later date!

I just dove in - first layer on the separator board and started slopping icing all over to complete the "crumb" coat. Nice turn-table was purchased at the thrift shop for $1! Very handy.

In order to really stabilize the cake so that the weight of the upper layers doesn't "squish" the lower layers, I cut to measure and inserted dowels thru the iced cake. Just free-handed poked them into the middle area of the cake. The servers will remove them as they slice the cake. So, the upper layer actually is supported by the dowels, not really the cake layer below.

Finished crumb-coat with dowels inserted vertically. Note the empty bowl of icing!! It takes a LOT of icing!!! I used the flexible stainless straight spatula you see laying beside the cake for the entire process.

Into the fridge to "harden".

All three layers crumb coated....

This is Friday morning - the second coat of icing to cover the crumb-coat. I won't bore you with the detail - it was just over-and-over, putting another coat on each layer. Back to the refrigerator for hardening each time. So, each layer has 3 total coats of icing, each one getting smoother. You can even cut rough edges off with a sharp knife.

This is the final product (it's the middle layer) ready for the piping. A word about the final smoothing - it's really hard to show it in photos, but the final smoothing was done with a Viva paper towel. With the cake right out of the fridge, you just take a Viva (smooth) paper towel, lay it evenly on the cake and rub with your warm hand! This may take a while, but the warmth of your hand will slightly "melt" the icing. The longer you rub, the more you can smooth out the imperfections. It leaves the surface looking "matte" just like a Viva paper towel. Keep in mind that the middle of the bottom two layers does not need to be well-finished because it will be covered with the upper layer!

I had to steal this photo from my niece's Facebook page - because I was in a terrible rush at this point and did not stop for many photos!! This is about 2PM on Saturday before the 4PM wedding!! I'm just piping little "scrolly" S's and C's one after the other with a plain round Wilton tip (I think a number 2, but I'm not sure and I'm not at home right now to look!)

The base layer about finished with the piping. It's sitting on a round piece of 3/4" plywood that Duane cut out with the bandsaw. Teresa covered it with a paper tablecloth. This is how I carried it to the hangar. I took the piping bag with me and did a very quick "ribbon" using a large leaf tip to finish off each layer's base.

And here is the finished product - about 1 1/2 hours later! I just quickly piped the ribbon to finish off attaching the different layers. It was 85 degrees and I was really worried about it melting, but I think it held up really well. Everyone seemed to rave about the cake - and most had no idea that I had made it! I'm glad I did it.....but it sure got hectic there at the last minute!!