th(E) Cake

5 years ago I was in a friend's wedding. She was from a pretty well-to-do family in Birmingham and the reception was held at The Club. I (only once mind you) mistakenly called it the (short vowel) club and was IMMEDIATELY corrected simultaneously by a few people that it was not the (short) club it was THE (long vowel) Club. How uncouth of me!

However I understand that a little better after making my sister in law's wedding cake. To me it was not just the wedding cake it was THE cake. Now I am aware that the cake is not the most important thing in the wedding. It actually ranks below quite a few things, however, it is something everyone will see and when Katie looked back on her wedding day I didn't want her to look back and say oh it was so beautiful but man wasn't that thing that happened with the cake hilarious! Like maybe it fell over, made everyone sick, or just looked so horrible that people felt they needed to over tell you how great it was. Since it was the one thing I was solely in charge of and the first time I've ever made a cake, not just a wedding cake but a cake in general, I wanted to do a good job.

I started the process the day before we left for Enterprise for Christmas. I had been looking online for months for advice, recipes, decoration ideas, etc so in my head I knew exactly how this was supposed to go. All the ingredients and supplies had been purchased and Steph let me borrow her mom's cake decorating stuff. I had also borrowed her kitchen aid mixer and my friend Krysti's mixer so that I would have three in all. It was definitely a full kitchen that day!


Anyway I baked, cooled, filled, and crumb frosted the layers for the three tiered cake and shoved them in my freezer quite proud that I had gotten it all done. Of course three days later in Enterprise I realized I was supposed to make two layers for each tier and I had only done one. Funny how that tidbit of info I hadn't read about, I guess it was supposed to be common sense. So Christmas night when we got back to Conyers, before we left for Gainesville the next morning, I baked, cooled, filled and crumb frosted the second layer for the three tiered cake.

We transported the three tiers (unstacked) to Gainesville and put them in the church kitchen. That night after a full day of wedding preparation and the rehearsal dinner I made more icing then I ever want to see again in a giant commercial mixer and spent the next few hours icing the cake and smoothing it to the best of my ability. Thank the Lord (seriously thank you so much) that my cousin in law Hannah stayed to help me. She gave me company and took on the icing process too. Two completely unexperienced bakers did a pretty dang good job!

The next day we were able to again transport this freakin' HEAVY thing (still unstacked) to the reception hall where I added ribbon and finally put all the pieces on top of each other. The only part that was hard was what to put on top. I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like but had no clue how to do it. Finally after another team effort it was all done and if I do say so myself it turned out pretty fabulous. Definitely WAY better than I had anticipated. People said it tasted good to but there was no way I was eating any. I stared at that thing way to long to be able to enjoy it!


I now understand why wedding cakes cost so much. I spent almost exactly $100 after it was all said and done which isn't much but the work you put in....WOW!!