I am the first to admit it was foolhardy.
I had no business offering to make one of my best friend’s a wedding cake.
It’s a significant day, hopefully one of life’s best.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today
The cake should be special, befitting an occasion that will be talked about for decades to come.
I consider myself a decent cook.
I can whip up a tasty salad, a mean tagine, a great slow cooked lamb roast.
But I can count on one hand the number of cakes I have baked. Only two had icing. None had layers. Certainly no tiers.
Nonetheless, overwhelmed by emotion, and maybe three glasses of champagne, I convinced myself, and my friends, that I could in fact bake their wedding cake.
It’s either the height of arrogance, or one of my best traits, that I have an inherent belief that I can do anything.
Perhaps not excel at all things — but if I work hard enough, try hard enough, I can do anything I put my mind to.
With that in mind, I went online and bought all the things I would need.
Cake tins, a stand mixer, cake dowels, boards, spatulas — even a bench scraper. As they say, all the gear — no idea.
I documented this journey on social media — because Lord knows with everything going on in the world right now — we all need a bit of light relief.
To understand just how lacking my baking skills were, please take a look at my first go.
The cake didn’t rise, it was dry.
My whimsical attempt at making Froot Loops frosting with no recipe was an unmitigated failure.
It looked like my dog had vomited up his breakfast.
At this stage, my friend was worried.
He was not alone.
Online, people begged me to go to Woolies and just buy mud cakes and pre-made frosting.
Still, I believed. I persevered.
But I did enlist a friend who grew up with a mum who baked cakes every weekend and knows a thing or two about how to make a layered cake.
Not a three tiered masterpiece — but she had the basics covered.
She shared some baking hacks that helped me create the DIY wedding cake of my friends’ dreams.
It was something you’d pay $1000 for. It was truly beautiful and tasted delicious and we have received so many compliments.
So I am going to share with you the hacks my friend taught me, and the tricks I learned along the way.
I will give you the exact recipes and techniques so that you can have the confidence to make a beautiful cake — without making all the costly mistakes I did.
And let me remind you — I am not a baker. This is a true beginner’s guide.
The first lesson is the most important.
In my friend Caitlin’s words: “Baking is science”.
She jokes, we are now women in STEM.
Listen, I own all the Ottolenghi cookbooks — I’ve even made dozens of meals from them. But if I’m honest — for me recipes are more a guide, a suggestion. I like to go rogue in the kitchen. Follow my instincts.
When it comes to baking, I now know, this is not an option.
Follow the recipe to the letter. Do not go rogue. Do not get creative. Do not substitute baking powder for baking soda, or unsalted butter for normal butter.
Obviously more experienced bakers can wing it.
But for us newbies — just follow the recipe.
HACK #1 – Weigh EVERYTHING
Buy digital scales.
Measuring cups and spoons, aren’t accurate.
Turns out, the cups that measure flour, sugar etc and the ones that measure liquids are different! Who knew!?
HACK #2 – Cake tin wraps
I am not sure why bakers keep this secret.
But you can buy material that you wet (and wring out) that you wrap around the cake tins while you bake and it stops the cake doming or cracking on top.
This is important when layering a cake.
They need to be flat — otherwise you have to cut the dome off.
You can also just cut up old tea towels into strips and fasten with a bulldog clip.
Also, after evenly splitting the batter between your cake tins (remember to weigh them, not just by eye) tap the pan on the table a couple times to remove air bubbles and spin the pans once — this will also help to level them off.
Once they are cooked flip them out of their pans and cool them upside down.
HACK #3 – Make swoon-worthy frosting
For the frosting on the outside of the cake, I used The Recipe Tin Eats formula.
It’s much less sweet than American Buttercream, which I find too sweet.
In between the layers, I used the Browned Butter Cream cheese frosting from this recipe.
It was To Die For.
I also layered it with some Dulce du Leche from a jar.
I also made up a Froot Loops-flavoured cream cheese frosting with lemon and orange zest.
USE THE SAME BRAND OF BUTTER
I didn’t realise how different butters are in terms of how yellow they are. I used about four different brands.
Some of my buttercream turned out super yellow, other batches were quite light.
When you are making a three-tier cake. you want all the buttercream the same colour.
I would only use Lurpak from now on because it is the palest butter in Australia.
If your frosting is too yellow, put a tiny, tiny bit of purple food colouring in your mix.
The purple counteracts the yellow.
But literally stick a toothpick in the dye then put that toothpick of colouring in the frosting. Mix.
Do not be tempted to just put a drop in.
A tiny bit goes a LONG way.
You will end up with purple frosting.
USE A DIGITAL THERMOMETER
“Softened butter” is hard to define.
Especially in Australia, room temperature is too warm and will make your frosting too runny.
Use a digital thermometer. It should be 18 to 20C.
I assumed you whip at the fastest speed to make it nice and light and fluffy.
I was wrong.
Apparently middle speed, using the paddle not the whisk attachment is ideal.
You don’t want it to have air bubbles or look like cottage cream.
HACK #4 – ACTUALLY FROSTING YOUR CAKES
Put your cream cheese frosting in between the layers. Lay on top of each other.
Then crumb coat your cake.
I watched this YouTube video to see how.
It is a thin layer of frosting so that all the crumbs are caught in that.
Then you put the cake in the fridge for half an hour and then frost it again for the final frosting layer.
And no crumbs.
If you can afford, get a spinning cake plate and a bench scraper to help you get a smooth finish on your frosting.
To be honest, this isn’t necessary if you follow my best hack of all (hack four).
HACK #5 – PRE-BAKE YOUR CAKE IN THE WEEKS BEFORE THE WEDDING AND FREEZE IT
I made 6x23cm layers for the middle tier and 4x15cm layers in the top tier.
I had two pans in each size — so made two cakes at a time.
I discovered cakes at the back of the oven on the left hand side cook faster than at the front.
This is not uncommon.
So halfway through the bake time I swapped their positions to make them rise and bake evenly.
I used Nagi’s Very Best Vanilla cake recipe. I tried different ones but this was the best. Trust me. Trust Nagi. It was even good to eat a week after the wedding.
I wrapped each layer individually twice in cling wrap, and put in the freezer.
All of them were done the weekend before the wedding weekend.
Minimise last-minute panic.
HACK #6 – DO A TRIAL ASSEMBLING THE CAKE USING DOWELS AND BOARDS
I didn’t do a full version of the three-tier cake.
But I did trial a two-tier cake with 2x23cm layers on the bottom and 2x15cm layers on the top.
Caitlin taught me how to crumb coat and frost the cakes using a bench scraper and cake spinner.
We assembled the layers with cake dowels and cake boards.
This all seems really intimidating for first timers.
If you watch a few YouTube videos you’ll see it’s actually pretty easy.
But I recommend trialling it once so you know what you are doing for the actual wedding.
HACK #7 – BUY A ‘FAKE TIER’
The fake tiers are only about $10 for two or three Styrofoam rings of “fake cake”.
You can also buy sugar flowers for decorating the top of the cake.
A lot of professional bakers do this trick.
You frost the bottom tier like it’s real cake.
No one knows the difference, but it gives you the height and grandeur of a professional wedding cake.
You can always just bake the third tier, but I knew there was enough cake from two tiers to feed everyone so I went with fake for the bottom.
Also it made the cake lighter and easier to transport.
HACK #8 – TRANSPORT YOUR CAKE IN SECTIONS
We put the fake bottom tier and the middle tier together using cake dowels and boards and frosted it all then we did the top tier separately.
We transported them in two separate cake boxes then we assembled them on site.
Much easier than trying to transport a three-tier cake already assembled.
HACK #9 – WRAP YOUR CAKE IN EDIBLE WAFER PAPER
This is probably my best tip.
It is time consuming to prepare but it made the difference between average wedding cake and top tier “looks professional” DIY Wedding Cake.
Plus, it was like Spanx for Cake. It hid all the sins.
The buttercream that was different colours on each tier because I used different brands of butter.
The slightly “leaning tower of Pisa” look from not placing the centre pole correctly.
The out-of-whack proportions because I made too many layers in the middle, compared to the bottom fake tier.
The wafer paper decorations covered all the sins.
If you go on social media, you will find lots of different looks that can be done with completely edible wafer paper.
I chose what looked the easiest to pull off.
I bought two packs of 100 sheets of A4-size edible wafer paper and a paper cutter.
I cut hundreds (thousands) of strips of paper about 1.5cm wide and placed them vertically on A4 sheets of the wafer paper sticking it with water.
Some people put each tiny strip on the cake itself but it would take about six hours on the wedding day.
Way too stressful for me.
So I pre-made it all so we could literally just wrap the frosted cake with these premade sheets at the venue.
It worked perfectly.
I have a reel of this on my Instagram account to see how I did it.
I packed an extra bag of frosting in a piping bag for the venue, and extra strips of wafer paper for any fixes needed on site.
When it came time to serve, the caterer took the cake into the kitchen, removed the wafer paper to basically “unwrap the cake”.
The frosting was patched up then cut and served.
HACK #10 – RELAX AND ENJOY YOUR BEAUTIFUL CAKE AND THE WEDDING
Enjoy the experience, eat the cake, bask in the glory of making an elite cake! And celebrate with the happy couple.
Would I do it again? I would definitely do it for them again if we wound back the clock.
Will I make another wedding cake for someone else? I’m not sure.
It was a lot of work.
But I enjoyed learning and experimenting so much.
In three weeks, I went from creating an awful, ugly embarrassment of a cake, to something to behold.
And my friends were so touched that I went to so much effort.
Also, I do quite enjoy proving my doubters wrong.
