June 16th 2022 was the best day of my life! The day I married my favourite person on a gloriously sunny day in the middle of the Dorset countryside. Here’s my story of baking my own wedding cake.
It’s important to note I did all of this back when I was just a novice baker, before my dream of being a professional cake artist came true!
But as anyone who’s married knows, weddings don’t come cheap! Fortunately, I love all things arts and crafts and also money saving (I learnt that from my Grandad). I made a lot of the elements for the wedding myself. Including the invitations, wedding favors and even the wedding cake!
Now a lot of people told me I was crazy for doing this at first. How was I ever going to find the time in the run up to my wedding for also baking my own wedding cake? Wouldn’t I be seriously stressed about everything cake related?
Well no not really! Firstly, I saved us a small fortune on the cost of a gluten free, dairy free wedding cake. Secondly, I’m such a control freak that I was convinced I could bake gluten and dairy free better than a professional. There was the small benefit of endless hours free for practice runs during the lockdown events of 2020. Finally, I really enjoyed it! It meant I could perfectly customise the cake to mine and my husbands wishes. Now I have a recipe I can bake whenever I want to remind us of that amazing day.
The Cake
The cake itself was a gluten and diary free lemon and elderflower sponge sandwiched together with lemon curd and ‘buttercream’ icing. Lemon drizzle has always been my Husbands favourite. But I wanted to add the elegant twist with the elderflower to tie in with the English countryside wedding. Elderflowers were blooming all over the local area when we got married. Elderflower also adds a subtle sweet floral note to the cake, and acts to tone down the acidity of the lemon. I had several comments from people who weren’t usually big fans of lemon cake saying that they really liked mine.
Now as I mentioned, I had plenty of time to practice the cake. During this time I really perfected my basic gluten and dairy free sponge recipe which I now add to for almost all of my cake and cupcake recipes. I took the risk and made the entire cake gluten free. Although I didn’t tell our wedding guests, and I even had comments that it was the best textured cake people had ever tried! Now that made me very happy!
Logistics of Baking my Own Wedding Cake
So onto the logistics to actually baking my own wedding cake for the big day. Well I am a big believer that cakes freeze perfectly well if treated right, and this was a big lifesaver! I baked all the tiers and layers (all 12 of them) a month before the wedding on a free Sunday. With the indispensable help from my mum for all the washing up it only took 2 hours to complete the baking. We used a grand total of 19 eggs, 9 lemons, 1.5kg of caster sugar, margarine and gluten free flour. I then carefully wrapped the individual cake layers as soon as they had cooled. First in cling film, making sure all edged were sealed, and then tin foil and stacked them not too high to squash themselves in the freezer. Yes I had no more room for freezer food until after the wedding!
On the Week of my Wedding
Two days before the wedding I took the cakes out of the freezer and begun the stacking fun. I stacked the layers while frozen which really helps with stability and keeping the cakes fresh. First, I drizzled over a little lemon juice sweetened with icing sugar, then added the ‘buttercream’. I made the ‘buttercream’ from margarine, Trex (vegetable fat), icing sugar and lemon juice, and finished it off with a generous dollop of lemon curd (dairy free) before I sandwiched the next cake layer on top. I kept the three tiers separate and boxed them up and stored in the fridge until the next day.
So the next day was the day of the wedding rehearsal. The wedding venue was a 45 minute drive from our house and it was the hottest week of the year so not perfect conditions for a novice cake maker to transport a wedding cake! It worked out just perfectly though. We had some big cool bags and a load of ice packs and drove very carefully to the venue. At the venue we stored the three separate tiers in different fridges around the place and went off to enjoy the last day before our big day.
On my Actual Wedding Day
On the actual wedding day I was getting ready at the venue while my husband was getting ready at our home (so that he could feed the cat haha). Because of the heat I left it as long as I could before stacking the cake. But not so long that I risked the early arriving guests catching me across to the reception marquee in my dressing gown and hair rollers. There I staked the three tiers – with a much increased heat-rate! I left my florist finishing the cake off with some beautify flowers while I ran back to my bridesmaids to finish off hair and makeup.
Its safe to say once the cake was in place I breathed a sign of relief. I was ready to really enjoy the rest of the day. I did ask the photographer to take photos as soon as she arrived. If it collapsed in a heap of melted margarine before the reception at least there would be a photo. To my relief the cake was standing perfectly straight 8 hours later when it was time to cut the it!
I need to give a big thank you to my Mum for all her help with the cakes. My Dad and Husband for their help tasting my trial runs. To my wonderful florist:
https://www.simplyflower.co.uk/
and to my amazing photographer:
https://www.lizaedgington.co.uk/
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