Our Wedding Cake!
There’s nothing quite like making your own wedding cake - some people can think of nothing worse, but for me it was a pleasure not to be missed, an opportunity for a true labour of love fully justified! Thankfully I was on my ‘Duracell Bunny Summer Waking Hours’ (ie waking up about 5am enthusiastic about getting up and making things - I notice I’ve reverted to normal-time now!). After the first two working drawings were scrapped, the final version emerged with creative direction from Bruce. Click on ‘more’ for more pictures and details!
I wanted our cake to tell a bit of a story - each tier represents a significant moment in our relationship…
The bottom tier related to our first date - walking on Weston-Super-Mare beach and having sausage and chips by the pier (strange to be writing about that today, the day the pier went up in flames). The sugarpaste was textured around the sides to mimic wave-sculpted sand (lots of it!) and kites remind us of Weston. This cake layer was almond with buttercream and raspberry jam, one of our favourite cakes being bakewell tart.
The cake pillars were (nasty!) plastic ones but covered in brown florists tape they followed the theme of the pier. We needed six on the bottom tier because with it being sponge cake but having a rich fruit middle tier, three pillars could not carry the other tiers without starting to twist. Physics is not my strong point but I understand when I see it!
The middle tier represented our engagement - Christmas Day 2006 at the top of the highest black run we could get to in Les Trois Vallees. Rich fruit cake. Home-made marzipan. Royal icing (freshly piste-bashed on the top!). Triangle fir trees. Our skis.
Making a few last-minute re-arrangements (the cake had spent the night in its box in the barn and the damp made the foliage a bit limp but it didn’t matter as it was malleable enough to move - good the goat didn’t find it!). The top tier represented our wedding day - celebrated at Dodman Point overlooking the sea - I couldn’t re-create the beauty of that bit of countryside so concentrated on the theme of flowers on the invitations Bruce designed and the bunting we had on our wedding campers’ field with the sugarpaste textured like grass fields around the sides.
Our friend Hannah said she was including a bit of black lace in the bunting she made, for Bruce’s benefit, so I thought I’d feature it on the cake!
Yum! One of my favourite recipes - from our vegan friend Gloria…vegan ginger cake, with vegan buttercream. The only ginger cake I make now.
Unfortunately all the ginger and almond cake has gone but we’ve got a bit of the middle tier left which is being savoured to the last crumb (yes, I know there are a few people we need to send some to…we’ve bought the little boxes…we will save you some I promise!)