How hard is it to make your own wedding cake? Have you made one?
How hard is it to make your own wedding cake? Have you made one?
I’m thinking about making my own wedding cake. I love to bake cakes, but as far as decorating it? IDK lol I saw some baking things at walmart today like the 14″ 10″ and 8″ pans to make one. I saw that they had fondant and a few icing flowers. Is there anywhere where I can buy a better selection of icing flowers? I also want edible pearls. Is that possible? Any ideas? Tips? please and thank you 
source: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20101030171114AAkAw5Q
Take a class from Michael’s Craft store. They will teach you how to decorate them and how to use the tools that you saw at Walmart. Personally, I’ve made wedding cakes but wouldn’t try to make my own. I have enough to take care of the week of my wedding that decorating a cake is the last thing I need to add to my stress.
you can buy edible pearls online, but please don’t use that nasty fondant icing. it is sooo yucky. a good buttercream is always better.
as for making it yourself, i have a friend who used to do it for some side money and i helped her some….it was hard and exhausting work. you have to know a great deal about properly icing the cake for it to come out looking good.
if you are going to do it, get some styrafoam rounds and practice on those first. ktichen supply stores sell icing flowers…you can also buy them online. check out http://www.sugarcraft.com/
Mine was homemade,
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/259/8/6/wedding_cake_by_dropofcolour25-d2yuocm.jpg
We made ours three different flavors (chocolate, red velvet and vanilla) and used butter-cream frosting (it tastes better than fondant). Try to go to a local craft store like Micheal’s or Joanna’s and see if they have any icing flowers or try to buy them from a local bakery or grocery store.
I have helped my friend. It is not as easy as you would think. The batter has to be denser so that the bottom layer will hold up the upper layers. The icing is difficult to get a certain color for the trim. But, a lot of people are using ribbon now to decorate the edges along with plain white piping tools. It takes a bit of time to learn to use the piping tools and you have to melt the icing after it is applied to make it smooth unless you are using fondit which is altogether different. You also have to know how to place the support sticks that go inside and have a board cut to fit under the cake, because a regular cake box wont do it. We made a three tier cake and decorated it. Board and everything still ended up costing around a hundred bucks by the time we bought ribbon, board cover, crisco, food coloring, dowel rods etc. She already had the piping tools and the cake decorating knife. Good luck. Its not impossible, but I would never try to make my own. I would freak out.
IF your wedding is a year away you have time to learn about cake decorating. Take the 3 Wilton classes offered at your local JoAnn’s. IF your wedding is soon PAY SOMEONE to create your cake.
I’ve done a wedding cake before and it’s not bad. But sometimes it can take a while if you want all that details and what not. It can take up to a day, if not longer. Esp for the more detailed cakes. You can take classes for cake decorating if you don’t know how to do the flowers and what not. There is some small white “pearls” you can find with cake decorating supplies. I have a container of it myself. And yes, they are edible.
However, if this is your wedding you are planning to make the cake for, just don’t do it. DO NOT MAKE YOUR OWN WEDDING CAKE!! I don’t care if you are the best baker out there, don’t do it. You won’t have time to make it yourself. You’ll be so busy with so many other things.
Do NOT make your OWN cake.
It’s way too stressful! I made my cake for the engagement party and that was stressful enough to tell me I did NOT want to do the wedding cake.
If you hunt around your local area you can find a baker or a patisserie that does them a lot cheaper than is standard. We had a three tier chocolate mud cake covered in white chocolate ganache made by a local patisserie for $ 150. The same cake through a wedding cake baker would have cost in excess of $ 500!
The hardest part about decorating the cake is getting the smooth base layer of icing or fondant. Once you have that in place it is fairly easy. I don’t do floral work on my cakes- I lean more towards filigree. I find filigree more challenging than moulding flowers.
A lot of people don’t realize how much time and effort goes into making a wedding cake, its not as easy as you might think.
I would go to a Michael’s, Joan’s or Hobby Lobby to take a class. There are 3 sessions to the classes (each session is about 1 month long) and the last session they teach you to make a small wedding cake as your final project, as well as making various flowers out of royal icing and fondant. Most of the classes are Wilton classes, some bakeries in your area may offer independent classes.
How much time do you have to learn to make the cake? The classes themselves are 3 months long, but it takes longer then that to learn to perfect the cake decorating without them looking sloppy. The cakes I made when I first got into cake decorating look like a child did them compared to the ones that I make now. It was a good year or 2 before I was ready to make a wedding cake on my own.
I took the Wilton classes at a Michael’s store with some co-workers as a joke about 12 years ago and found out – I was *really* good at it..lol I now own a bakery who does wedding cakes and various other things.
I will give you this though, if you want to make one with fondant, make sure you make your own fondant, don’t make it from a box, most boxed fondants – taste like the box they came from!
Buttercream frosting overall tastes better than fondant does. In most of my cakes I make I have buttercream frosting underneath the fondant because many people scrape the fondant off.
Edit: Unlike some are telling you on here, you can make your own wedding cake, but learning it takes a lot of time and yes you will be busy. I’m making my own wedding cake, however the circumstances are different I’m a professional at it, so I know that I can pull it off.
I’m sure you could take a class and figure out how to make your own wedding cake. But, do you really want to be stressing about a huge baking project right before your wedding? It’s not worth it. If you like cupcakes…consider baking cupcakes instead. It’s so much easier to do. Get one of those cool frosting bags with a decorative tip to make swirly frosting designs, like all those overpriced cupcakeries are doing these days.
It would be easier and cheaper to buy (ordered in advance) a basic white icing cake at any grocery store. Then decorate it with fresh flowers matching your bridal colors or two glasses filled with rose petals, overflowing onto the cake. It’s really easy to ‘fancy’ up a basic white cake.
At my nieces recent wedding, her 4 tier cake was gorgeous. I was shocked to find out the bottom 3 tiers were styrofoam, only the top tier real. She had large square ‘boxes’ stacked one atop, getting smaller as it went higher, all covered in fondant. It was decorated with large ribbons and flowers in the same colors as the bridal bouquets. They even ‘cut’ the fake bottom layer for the photos.
Congratulations and Good Luck