Episode 80 – Simple Two Tiered Wedding Cake

Episode 80
December 11, 2011
Simple Two Tiered Wedding Cake

My friends and long-time fans know that of all the pastries in the world to make I tend to avoid making cakes.  A lot of that stems from the crazy competitive nature that making cakes has become and I really don’t want to get caught up in all of that – not to mention I don’t think I have the eye or artistic mind that you need for advanced cakes.  In addition, elaborate cakes can take a long time to make and the whole process is pretty stressful – then delivering the cake?  Just extra stress.  That being said, I finally became confident enough to start making more elaborate cakes and when my good friend Deana asked me to help her out for her wedding I decided to finally take up the challenge.  It was a good learning experience for me and Deana got an amazingly tasty cake to help usher in the next chapter of her life.

Starting from the very basics, the cake is made up of two different flavor cakes.  The first is the Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake [links to my first 3D cake episode], one of my favorite and very consistent chocolate cake recipes.  The devil’s food chocolate cake is a fluffy and somewhat dense cake that draws a lot of its flavor from the kind of cocoa powder you use.  I’ve fallen in love with bensdorp cocoa powder – the flavor and the texture is unlike any other cocoa powder I’ve ever had.  It is absolutely irresistible as an icing flavoring.

The larger tier is the Vanilla Chiffon Genoise cake.  This egg heavy cake is spongy and light – think of a spongy marshmallow in cake form.  It is somewhat difficult, time consuming, and expensive to make but once you try this cake you won’t ever want a different vanilla cake again.  Speaking very objectively, genoise cakes aren’t exactly the best cakes for a bottom tier because they are so spongy.  Unlike a dense pound cake, or even the devil’s food chocolate cake, if the cake supports somehow fail the cake will be crushed pretty quickly.  Don’t let this deter you from using this cake.  Deana and her guests were blown away by the flavor and the texture commenting that it was what couture cakes taste like.

The icing was my go to Swiss Buttercream.  I’ve grown pretty attached to swiss buttercream over the past couple years.  I used to be a hardcore believer in Italian buttercream but as my batches got smaller and my mixer got bigger it was harder and harder to make a proper Italian buttercream at home.  In addition, as Katie from Katie Cakes Cakery points out in the Ask Katie page, it’s really easy to make.  This icing is easy to flavor and customize by using vanilla extract, cocoa powder, or various flavoring oils.  You can make the icing extremely air-light by using less butter and more egg whites.  Keep in mind the less butter you use, the less firm it will become when being refrigerated which means you’ll have a harder time covering it in fondant.

The cake itself is covered in a cream colored fondant.  I’ve come a long way in terms of covering cakes with fondant and I hope each fondant video I make helps you all understand how to work with fondant more and more.  I used to be really intimated by fondant.  I think one problem was the fondant was expensive and you really only have one shot to make it work.  This is especially true when you cover a cake with a dark colored icing.  The best way to learn to cover cakes in fondant is to practice covering dummy cakes with wilton fondant.  I find wilton fondant to be pretty temperamental and then when coupled with a runaway tier (styrofoam) you learn pretty quickly how to get good at using fondant fast.  The fondant I use for covering cakes is Satin Ice, a favorite of both mine and Katie’s, but Josie (food blogger over at All in the Name of Noms and guest star in the Chocolate Raspberry Ganache episode) actually prefers making her own fondant.  I’ve been wanting to work with marshmallow fondant for a while now – I really just need to do it!

The technique that is introduced in this episode is painting piped royal icing with gold luster dust.  Royal icing is a favorite decorative icing for cake designers.  It is sturdy, can be dried and then moved around like sugar work, easy to make, inexpensive, shelf-stable for almost forever, and is versatile enough for a wide variety of designs and uses.  Unlike most pastry recipes that call for egg whites, you can use pasteurized egg whites without whipping aid to make royal icing.  Pasteurized egg whites can be found in your grocer’s egg section in a carton – normally advertised as egg starter or omelet starters.  Using egg whites in a carton is a huge time saver so try to use them when you can.

It is actually very easy to paint with gold luster dust.  Mix a very very little amount of

Notice how the fondant ribbons over the bottom tier affect how the top tier sits. If you can find a cake circle (or make one with parchment) use it as a template to cut the fondant ribbons so the top tier will sit perfectly flush against the top of the cake. Otherwise, have your straw supports stick out of the bottom tier a little to help support the top tier.

unflavored vodka with some of the gold dust to make a thin paste.  Too much vodka and it will be runny and it’ll take much longer and many more coats to achieve the desired effect.  Then simply use a decent paintbrush (a paintbrush you only use for food!) to coat the piped designs.  It takes a lot of time to do this, especially if you have a lot of designs to paint, and it may take a second coat.  Be sure to give yourself plenty of time to do a great job.  CK makes the gold luster dust I use but you can always ask your local baking supply store owner for advice.  (The link appears to be down, but I know they aren’t out of business.  I’ll keep an eye on it and update it as necessary).

For this wedding cake, and most tiered cakes I make, I always assemble on site where the cake will be served.  To prepare, I keep some royal icing in a piping bag for touch up work.  I also place the tiers in cake boxes and wrap them tight with plastic wrap and refrigerate them.  When I’m on my way to deliver the cakes I keep them wrapped allowing them to slowly rise up to room temperature.  This helps prevent condensation from forming on the cake so the fondant and decorations don’t melt.

Once I’m there, if I haven’t already, I “glue” the cake down to the decorative cake board with royal icing and I use straight plastic straws as columns.  Plastic straws are great because they don’t take up any space in the cake, you don’t have to carve out any cake to use them, and they are super cheap and easy to use.  That being said, if you don’t place them perfectly straight up and down they will fail to support upper tiers.  All you need are 3 straws but I’ve gotten into the habit of using 5 to 7 straws.  I was especially careful to use extra straws this time because the cake had to sit pretty for over 24 hours.  You’ll be happy to know the cake survived the entire time.  I was constantly texting Deana to make sure the cake was holding up so you can imagine how relieved I was to hear that it survived the entire time.

If you haven’t already noticed, the cake decorating world has a huge debate over using inedible items in a cake design – particularly as decorative pieces.  I almost exclusively use satin ribbon when I do fancy cakes like this one.  Satin ribbon is relatively inexpensive, is extremely thin, is easy to use, and adds a color/texture contrast to the appearance of the cake.  In addition, I use sanitized straight pins (but it is possible to use royal icing) to hold the ribbon in place.  Some people are horrified at the idea of using inedible ribbons and prefer to use fondant ribbons painted with a clear luster dust.  If you don’t believe this is a huge debate in the pastry world, next time you’re in a room with cake decorators ask, “Hey, what do you think about using satin ribbon and other inedible decorations on cakes?”  I can guarantee you’ll be in for a very heated, but very educational, debate.

Here are the recipes from the devil’s food chocolate cake, vanilla chiffon genoise, swiss buttercream, and royal icing.  Enjoy the video below and thank you for watching me make my first wedding cakes!