The Great Day Dawns!

By the time you read this, dear readers, the wedding cake will have arrived at its destination and the wedding celebrations will have begun.

It's been a real challenge to produce a cake good enough for my son's wedding, I hope that I've managed to make the best cake that my skills will allow. The hardest part of all, of course, is the icing as its on show, and this was also the most traumatic part of the preparations. All the cake lacks in these photos is the Bride and Groom topper that my niece, O has made and will be bringing along on the great day - more photos to follow.


So raise a glass of your favourite tipple (mine's champagne) and wish G & K a joyful and fulfilling life together - good health and happiness!

Wedding Cake Trimmings

When marzipaning the wedding cake I had to level the tops of each tier and consequently ended up with a box of rich trimmings.














This was my first chance to taste the cake and the Handyman hastily volunteered to become taster-in-chief, and the result...

a delicious, rich, moist, fruity, boozy...10/10!

I managed to stop him eating his way through the boxful in time to make a very festive version of a bread and butter pudding...any rich fruit cake will provide the base for this most delicious pudding, so Christmas cake leftovers, even slices of Christmas pudding would fit the bill.














Festive Cake Pudding
Serves 4
Ingredients
Enough wedding cake pieces to two thirds fill a deep 7" pie dish
6 fl ozs doouble cream
6 fl ozs milk
2 large eggs
1 tblsp golden castor sugar
few drops vanilla essence
1 dessertspoon golden granulated sugar

Method
Put the wedding cake pieces into the pie dish. Then put the milk and cream into a small saucepan and heat gently.

Meanwhile using a fork gently beat the eggs, castor sugar and vanilla essence together in a bowl. When the milk is hot, but not boiling, remove it from the heat and add to the egg mixture stirring to combine.

Place the pie dish on a baking tray and pour the milk and egg mixture (the custard) over the cake - the mixture will be very liquid and will fill the pie dish. Leave to stand for 10 mins to allow the cake to absorb some of the custard mixture.

Sprinkle the golden granulated sugar over the top of the pudding and carefully place in the preheated oven at 180C for 30 minutes. The pudding should be golden on top and just set. Serve whilst still warm with double cream poured over the top - yummee!

Wedding Cake Marzipan

It's almost time to tackle the next stage of the wedding cake challenge - marzipan.

I've opted for a white marzipan rather than the usual golden colour and I am reading through the application techniques on various websites - can you tell I'm a bit nervous about this? After all it's only my elder son's and future DIL's wedding cake - arrgh! Wonder how they would feel about standing in front of it and obscuring it from view for the cutting the cake photos?

I may or may not post a photograph when I've finished the marzipaning - let's see how traumatised I am by the time I've completed this stage. Heaven knows how I'll get through the icing challenge - more on that in December.

More Wedding Cake News

Two more wedding cake tiers made yesterday, both 6" cakes and baked in the Aga Rayburn, one for the second tier of the wedding cake and the other as an additional cake to ensure that we have enough to let all the wedding guests have a piece. Time now to source the icing materials...

Wedding Cake Update

Just a quick update on the cake's progress...after 6 hours in the oven and cooling overnight - it didn't come out of the oven until 8pm - I pricked over the top of the cake and spooned over 2 tablespoons of brandy, letting it soak into the cake. It was then wrapped in two layers of greaseproof paper and two layers of foil and stored in a container in the larder to mature...only two more cakes to make next week and then I can start looking for the icing materials...phew!

Wedding Cake

My elder son and his fiancee have set their wedding date for late December and part of my contribution to the event is the wedding cake. So, after much trepidation - how on earth will I ice and decorate this cake! - consideration - what size of cake? how many tiers? - and preparation - gather together all the ingredients, ensure I have the right size cake tins - I'm ready to make a start.

Again, Good Housekeeping Cookery Book has come to the rescue with quantities of ingredients for various sizes of cake and advice on what sizes to combine in tiers. I'm going to make a two tier round cake, 10" and 6" with a second 6" cake in reserve to produce extra portions as required. I've used my Christmas cake recipe as that's tried and tested and beautifully rich and the Handyman assures me that it is fruity and delicious. I'll leave the nuts out of the 6" cakes to cater for anyone with a nut allergy or who simply doesn't like nuts.

Today I've begun with the largest tier. The first thing to do was prepare the baking tin by lining it with 2 layers of greaseproof paper and placing a double band of newspaper lined with greaseproof paper around the tin. It really should be brown paper round the tin but my preparation went astray here and I forgot to buy some...oops!

Next thing to do is measure out all the ingredients (I've given the quantities for the 10" cake with the quantities for the 6" cake in brackets) starting with the fruit and nuts:

1lb 12oz (8oz) currants
13oz (4oz) sultanas
13oz (4oz) raisins
9oz (2oz) glace cherries
(washed, dried and quartered)
5oz (1oz) mixed peel
5oz (1oz) flaked almonds

Then weigh the butter, sugar and lemon rind into a bowl:

1lb 2oz (5oz) softened butter
1lb 2oz (5oz) golden castor sugar
lemon rind, a little

and sieve the flour and spices into another bowl:

1lb 5oz (6oz) plain flour
1 level tsp (quarter level tsp) mixed spice
1 level tsp (quarter level tsp) cinnamon

finally beat the eggs together in another bowl and measure out the brandy into a cup:

9 (2½) large eggs
3 tbsp (1 tbsp) brandy

Now the fun begins...

Cream together the butter, sugar and lemon rind until light and fluffy. Add the beaten eggs a little at a time, beating well between each addition of egg. Gradually fold in the flour with a metal spoon, then fold in the brandy. Finally fold in the fruit and nuts.


I had to use my preserving pan to fit all the butter mixture, flour and fruit in. I also used by food processor to cream the butter and sugar together in batches and then mixed in the eggs using an electric whisk. The folding in of the flour and fruit I did by hand and it has done wonders for the muscle tone in my upper arms! A final stir of the cake for luck using a wooden spoon bought by G as a gift for Mum from a school trip to Wales many moons ago, lots of memories and love in this cake.

When everything is thoroughly mixed together, spoon the cake mixture into the prepared tin making sure that there are no air pockets and make a slight hollow in the centre to ensure an even top when cooked.

Place in a preheated oven 150C for 6hrs (2½-3hrs)until a fine skewer in the centre comes out clean. Cover the top of the cake with greaseproof paper after 1½ hrs and for the 10" cake reduce the heat of the oven to 130C after 4 hrs. When cooked leave to cool in the tin before turning out onto a wire rack. Wrap the cool cake in a double thickness of greaseproof paper and place upside down in an airtight tin. Cover the tin with foil to store.

All that's left to do now is wash up and wait 6 hours to see the results!


As for the icing and decoration, well I'll be building myself up to that over the coming weeks and have engaged the help and artistic talents of my niece, O. No doubt I'll provide further news on progress in later posts - wish me luck!