Wedding Cake Weekend

About a month and a half ago, my friend Elizabeth informed me that she would be getting hitched on September 19th. Then, while I was still in a state of shock from that little announcement, she asked if my mother and I would be in charge of the wedding cake. I said "yes" without either consulting my mother or firing up enough brain cells to realize that, while we both love to cook, neither of us had ever attempted anything as complicated or potentially life altering as a wedding cake.

Lucky for me and my hair-trigger "yes" reflex, my mother was overjoyed at the idea of providing the cake for Elizabeth's big day. You see, while most women dream of living a lifestyle where they can have the money and occasion to hire a caterer, my mother's life long dream is actually to be a caterer.

We quickly enlisted the help of my sister-in-law Becky, who has a culinary arts degree and a great deal of experience making wedding cakes. Armed with my mother's natural talents and overwhelming excitement, Becky's technical experience and artistic abilities, and my uncanny knack for volunteering them for huge responsibilities, we set out upon an adventure fit for an epic narrative poem... or at very least a cleverly written limerick.

We spent part of Labor Day weekend baking a variety of cupcakes for Elizabeth to taste test. The soon-to-be-bride sampled the different cakes and frostings and then very carefully and deliberately made her decisions.





Decisions that we honored right up until the day before the wedding when we decided it would be fun to use completely different recipes.





Thankfully, Elizabeth didn't mind the last minute switch. Of course, her zen attitude about the whole thing could have been due to the fact that we didn't tell her that we were changing recipes, but I would rather chalk it up to her kind and charitable nature.


Becky and my mom started working on the top tiers earlier in the week, then I drove over on Friday morning to help with the 200 or so cupcakes that would make up the bottom tiers. After a few hours of watching me spread flour, powdered sugar, and various other cake-related paraphernalia all over her kitchen, my mom thought it would be a good idea if we took a little break.

Lucky for us, our neighborhood high school was having their home coming parade. So we hijacked Becky, dressed her little girls up in I.F. Tiger related gear, and headed out to cheer for the band kids and the floats.

Kenna wore a what we told her was a tiger hat (it was really the hood for my brother's old yellow care bear costume, but she was kind enough to humor us) and both girls wore tiger noses that came as Happy Meal toys way back in 1988.

The hat and noses ended up scoring the girls a giant pile full of parade candy.

Kylie had a little bit of trouble eating the candy while wearing the nose, but was not willing to take off that magical thing that caused perfect strangers to throw candy at her from moving vehicles.

So she compromised.

I can not wait to see how she uses her unique problem solving abilities later in life. Mark my words, this little Monchichi is going to go far!

My biggest responsibility for this whole wedding project was ordering the brown cup cake papers... which I forgot to do until exactly a week before the big day.

I spent that week assuring everyone else involved that the papers would get here before the wedding, and they did.

The mail man dropped them off exactly two hours before the wedding started, and about 14 hours after we had baked the last cup cakes. Thank goodness my dad had time to help us hunt for a plan B after putting the finishing touches on his wedding ceremony routine.

Here is how the actual cake distribution of labor came out: Elizabeth's dad and brother-in-law built the rockin' cake stand, Elizabeth, her sisters, and her mother decoated it, Becky and my mom baked, assembled, and decorated the two-tier cake, my mom baked the vanilla cupcakes, I made the chocolate cupcakes and then made about a dozen batches of frosting for my mom to swirl on all 200 cupcakes.

I would have helped with the decorating, but my swirling abilities leave much to be desired. Can you spot the cup cake I swirled in the photo below?

We had all of the cup cakes finished and the cake mostly assembled about an hour before we were scheduled to drive across town to deliver the cake and the bishop to the wedding location.

Once we arrived, it was time for the final touch ups.

There were flowers to add and ribbons to smooth before the cake was moved to its place of honor in the beautifully decorated backyard. Becky and my sweet mother did most of that.

I had somehow managed to slice off the top of my knuckle a few minutes before we left my parents house, so my main job for the afternoon was not to bleed on anything important. I think I did a pretty darn good job accomplishing that goal...but it helped that red was one of the accent colors.

Soon the cake was hoisted into place, cup cakes and flowers were carefully arranged, and the string quartet began playing the music that signaled the start of the ceremony.

The wedding was beautiful and neither the bride nor her mother shed tears of broken-hearted disappointment when they saw the cake, so I think we can call this little adventure in cake baking a success.

The best part, besides the whole "Elizabeth marrying the man of her dreams" thing, was seeing our hard work enjoyed by our target audience.After all, when a flower girl's only pay comes in the form of cup cakes, they had better be pretty darn good. And when it comes to frosting, I know for a fact that nieces have the most discriminating of tastes.

So once again, congratulations to Elizabeth and "The Boy" (a.k.a. Ratha). Thanks letting us be a part of your most special day. And to anyone else out there who may want to enlist my family in baking a building a wedding cake: we will be more than happy to supply you with a list of very reputable professional bakers.