Once upon a time, I got married. I had grand dreams of making my own cake. Until sense kicked in and nudged me sharply and told me that I had never made a wedding cake in my life and that was not the time to try. Now over four years later, I’m finding myself making a two tier wedding cake, not for myself, but for fun (and in training for my friend The Second Wife’s wedding on Hallowe’en Eve). Teaching me today was Faye Cahill, creator of some of the most breathtakingly pretty wedding cakes. In fact if I had known about her at the time of my wedding, I would have snapped up one of her creations immediately.
Faye uses the glue gun to stick the 12mm dowel into the cake base
Today my fellow students and I would be making a two tier wedding cake. Would it work out? I was worried that it might be a disaster. I only have a fleeting association with dowel rods and construction tools. We start off around the workshop tables. I am sitting next to a very friendly Not Quite Nigella reader Li-ting. Faye is softly spoken and lovely and her classes are nice and intimate with only seven students per class.
Using a handy measurement board to find the centre
Faye explains that the cake will sit on a wooden disc. In the centre of this disc is a hole that has been drilled and a 12m dowel rod (wooden sick) sits glued within it. This is the basic structure holding the cake in place which gives it integrity and support. We will be ganaching and icing an 8 inch chocolate mud cake while a 5 inch chocolate mud cake has already been ganached for us. Ganache (a mixture of chocolate and cream) not only gives us a smooth surface on which to place the fondant icing, as it sets hard it also adds support to the structure.
Ganaching the silver cake base to the decorating board
Slicing off the crusty top of the cake
The serrated knife slicer and leveller
We start by trimming off the top of the cake to remove any crusty pieces. We then turn the cake upside down and use a very handy tool, a serrated knife cake leveller which we use to cut the cake into three layers. We brush each layer lightly with sugar syrup which keeps the cake moist. We then ganache the bottom 8 inch cake board and place one cake layer on it and then ganache this on top. My issue has always been doming. I always end up creating a dome when I ganache it. Asha, Faye’s assistant gives me a tip to avoid the dome look. It is to hold the palette knife with the handle pointing up and the tip of the knife down slightly. I tend to hold the knife the other way which means that the ganache at the sides is lower and I get more ganache in the centre.
I ganache over the hole in the bottom so that the cake sticks
Scraping any stray ganache from the sides
Now that the cake is ganached, we get to shaping the cake. Did you ever wonder how cakes have that perfect edge to them? Like when you filled your cake the filling never quite got to the edge and you could see the layers in between? Well this is because they trim the cakes. In fact we take out an instrument which I haven’t used since High School (or was it Primary school?) which is a right angle.
Measuring to see that there is a a 1/2 cm gap between the base of the silver board and the cake
We need to ensure that the edge of the cake is at least 1/2 a centimetre to 1 centimetre away from the edge of the silver base. This is because we are going to fill that gap with ganache which will set hard and give the cake even more structural integrity around the outside. The cake is then refrigerated so that the ganache can set. So we trim the cake with the serrated knife to get us this gap.
Trimming the sides to get the gap
Ganaching the sides
Now whoever said ganaching is easy is crazy. The ganaching is also the most important step and one that we end up spending hours on in order to get that amazing sharp edge that Faye’s cakes are known for. In fact the next three or so hours are spent alternating between ganaching and scraping and ganaching and scraping back to get an absolutely perfect, smooth, straight edge. Because if you don’t have this, your cake won’t be as beautifully smooth. And it’s a wedding cake folks so we want it to be purrrfect!
We start ganaching the top and sides with the soft chocolate ganache where we use a back and forth motion with the palette knife to avoid picking up crumbs. When it looks good we take another 8 inch board, lightly sprinkle it with water on the silver side and place it silver side down directly on top of the cake where it sits flush against the bottom cake plate the water helping it adhere to the cake (see below).
Placing another silver board on top to create a lid
Filling in the ganache here too
Our task now is to fill the sides with ganache until it reaches the dimensions of the 8 inch cake board from top to bottom. We spread some warmed ganache and while the ganache is still soft, we use the scraper to scrape the top and sides checking for any gaps. If we do have any gaps, we spread more ganache over these and then keep reganaching.
You can do this from anywhere from three times to five or even more being sure to work quickly. The key is to scrape back the ganache while it is soft, not when it sets hard. All of the scarping is done while spinning the cake in a fluid motion on a turntable. The way to hold the scraper is to spread out your four fingers on one side and securing it with your thumb on the other side (see picture of Faye’s hand placement above). A quick way to ganache the sides is to place the ganache directly on the large scraper.
Ta-da!
Once the ganache sits flush against the top and bottom cake boards we take a paring knife dipped in hot water and remove the top silver lid.
Carefully removing the lid
But it’s still not finished…
It’s not done though! We finish this off with a palette knife in hot water which helps to smooth out any rough edges. The cake is then refrigerated again. Usually the ganaching is done one day ahead as the cake is much easier to put fondant on if the ganache is well set. As the five inch cakes were done the night before we all see the difference.
Lunchtime-yay!
We break for lunch (see I did tell you that we spent hours on the ganacheing-these cakes are perfection!) and Faye takes our orders for lunch from the nearby organic cafe. I order a burger which is juicy with beetroot, a beef patty and a sweet tomato relish and an excellent orange juice.
Bakels fondant
Now that we have our energy back we get ready for the fondant. We first brush the cake very lightly with an apricot jam syrup. Fay tells us that when we open the fondant, we should cut away any hard and crusty bits around the edge. We take about 800grams or so of the fondant to cover the 8 inch cake and roll it out on a little cornflour using big, broad rolling pin strokes on a lightly cornfloured surface and moving it about so that it doesn’t catch on the surface. The key is to work quickly before the fondant dries out (although if it does, you can add some glycerin to the mixture). Faye shows us the acupuncture needles that she uses to get out any air bubbles as they are very fine-the trick there is to prick the bubble low or to the side.
Placing the rolled out fondant on top of the cake
Smoothing the top
Smoothing down the top edges
We roll the fondant onto the rolling pin and then gently lift it above the cake. We first smooth the top down and ensure that there aren’t any air bubbles. We then smooth the edges down and then using the flat side of our palms, we smooth the icing downwards onto the cake. To avoid cutting into the icing you simply lift and smooth the icing. It looks difficult and like you will have to have a fold but if you continue to gently lift and smooth down the icing will go on smoothly-honestly!
Use a modelling tool to draw a line around the bottom edge of the cake and then cut the icing off using a paring knife.
Now comes the tricky bit which eluded a few of us. Shaping the sides to get a perfect sharp edge using the acrylic smoothers. I think I finally got the hang of it at the end and it seems the key here is to push the acrylic smoother on the side in and the one of top in the direction of the one on the side. We also smoothed out the sides with the acrylic smoothers and X-ray buffer.
Smoothing using a rectangle of Xray sheet
We do this for the 5 inch cake which has been ganached the day before and this cake is much easier to place the fondant on.
Impaling the cake onto the wooden board
Time for the impaling! We spread a little royal icing on the bottom and gently lower the cake onto the stick trying to find the hole at the bottom of our cake stand. I gasp as I see the wooden dowel rod peek out but this supposed to happen-the extra rod on top is for the second tier support.
As our top tier is a 5 inch cake, we use a 4 inch round as a guide to see where we put our three dowel rods in. We insert the dowel rods right to the bottom, mark them, and then cut them with secateurs. The dowel rods are three supports to help take the weight of the top tier off the bottom tier. We then cover these with some royal icing and then slide the 5 inch cake on top of the 8 inch cake.
Marking the height of the cake against the dowel rods
Cutting them off where marked and then…
Pushing them back down so that the 5 inch cake on the silver cake base can rest its weight on it
Now we’re up to the fun bit-or the bit where I have a bit of a panic. The decorating! I never thought that I’d ever do piping this intricate in my life. I always assumed that you needed to buy specialist equipment and border stamps that you press into the fondant but Faye shows us a clever trick. She photocopied a bit of lace and traced the outline of it. She then traces this onto a long sheet of greaseproof paper using pencil.
We take a look at our cake and see if there are any imperfections. If there are, we make that part as the back of the cake. We take some pins and pin down the greaseproof paper with the pencil side facing the cake. Using a skewer and with light motions, we rub the greaseproof against the cake which transfers the pattern onto the icing! We repeat the process with the bottom tier too. I’m rather excited about this as this means that I don’t have to buy lots of pattern imprints!
And then I come to my undoing. The Piping. I started off ok with the teardrop patterns where we start from the bottom and move the tip up quickly to get a crisp cut. But then it all starts to fall apart when I do the “snail’s trail” and I end up with more of a rope pattern.
See the rope pattern on the top tier? Not good…
My hands are starting to ache from clutching the piping bag and I have a real respect for people that can pipe (although I already did as I am not great at it). Faye suggests doing some drops which you might be able to see in the picture above-this is an easier and quicker way of piping a line than a snail’s trail.
Everyone quietly piping
Redone once I regrouped and recovered from my “moment”
I get a bit of a second wind after resting my hand and I decide to redo the drop and make it a snail’s trail which I kind of get the hang on but not quite…
Placing the icing layer on the board
The last part before the final decorations is lining the outside of the board. We roll out a round of fondant just larger than the cake plate and cut out an 8 inch centre. We discard the centre and take the ring and place it around the cake putting the join at the back of the cake and we just brush it underneath with the jam syrup. We buff the seal until it disappears.
And then brushing a jam syrup onto the base
The finishing touches are the ribbon and the flowers. Faye gives us an assortment of flowers and leaves and ribbon we can choose from. We join the ribbon with some hot glue and the flowers sit on the ends of toothpicks and the leaves on wire so we simply insert them into the cake cutting the wires if necessary.
My cake-don’t look too closely ok? 
I look back at my cake and am slightly startled there for a moment-the cake actually looks like a wedding cake! Did I actually do that? 
I underestimated what a high I would feel when I saw the finished cake. I’m sure cake artists could pick it apart within seconds with an experienced eye but I actually feel excited that it actually looks like a wedding cake! We all go away with a certificate and an extremely detailed step by step outline of what we did knowing that if we were ever called upon to decorate a wedding cake, we could.
And speaking of weddings, you can check out the second of my series of four guest posts for the Modern Wedding Australia blog!
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever made a wedding cake?
NQN attended Faye Cahill’s Wedding Cake class as a guest of Faye Cahill
Faye Cahill Cake Design
2/420 New Canterbury Road, Dulwich Hill, NSW
Tel: +61 (02) 9568 3165
http://fayecahill.com.au/
The Two Tier Wedding Cake class is $420 which includes taking home your own completed two tier wedding cake that feeds 50 people.
Classes are here (download a pdf): http://www.fayecahill.com.au/classesnovdec10.pdf
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124 Comments | Add your own
Those cakes look amazing and you did so well Lorraine! I would never have the patience (nor the skills) to do that!
What an informative cake tutorial yet again! Thanks NQN! Mad props to the bakers who make these custom cakes, we have NO IDEA how skillful they are with the piping and icing and how much time and effort goes into these creations.
P.S. I have never seen that pencil transfer process onto fondant. wow.
Beautiful cake- what a great class! I’ve never attempted a wedding cake, and probably never will. Birthday cakes are more my level of expertise!
I am not a person who is good at baking so I don’t think I will attempt to make one.
It looks great, what an excellent and detailed tutorial. Uuuggghhh I hate piping you did a fab job.
I always admire people who can make gorgeous cakes. My icing jobs always look like someone turned a 4 year old loose.
Well Lorraine, that is truly impressive, and I am with you when you said that you wanted to make the cake just for fun!
The icing and decorating bit is a useful skill to have, you did a fantastic job, and royal icing is hard to squeeze… I have little cold hands and they get stiff and sore.
What can I say: Brava!!! Bravissima in fact!
ciao
Alessandra
All of those cakes are gorgeous and you did a fantastic job!
I don’t think I could pipe out such intricate details!
Great job Lorraine, what an effort! Thanks for the ganache tips, I’ll have to remember how the pros do it next time I attempt a fancy cake. I think the consistency of the ganache is so important, do you have the recipe for it?
The cakes are absolutely beautiful – there is no way in a million years I would ever attempt to do one myself – I would be so stressed!
oh my – that cake is mesmerising! I would love to learn how to do that one day!!!
WOW! That looks like fun… lots of work though. Well done you clever thing you!
Lorraine if that had been my cake, I think I would have taken a photo of it and popped it up next to bed side table. Beautifully done!
I have the utmost respect!! This is not something I could ever do!! Your cake looks absolutely gorgeous, well done!!
I think your cake looks gorgeous Lorraine! If I did that, I would be so pleased. I have never made a wedding cake. For a cake deco class, we iced a single tier supermarket bought fruit cake and made fondant flowers, but I have always wanted to know how to do the lacework piping.
That is a beautiful cake Lorraine! Great effort
I haven’t tried making a wedding cake it is way too daunting!
That looks amazing Lorraine. And perfect timing because I am in the process of practicing for a friend’s wedding cake that I’ll bake in January. I posted about it last night in fact!!
absolutely stunning! makes me want to book myself in for a class
Wow – that looks amazing! I’m getting married in May and there is no way I’ll be attempting my own cake! See all the labour that goes into the cake, makes me realise why wedding cakes are so expensive!
I am SO impressed Lorraine! How amazing! I’ve always wanted to learn how to make a proper fondant-covered cake. I tried to teach myself once but the results were horrendous to say the least. I’ll try again on a Christmas cake, I’ll post it if the results are as hilarious!
Very detailed description of it all. I don’t think words would ever describe how hard it is to perfect cake making. Your cake looks fantastic. I’m sure the final product you make for The Second Wife will be just as good if not better
Oh my goodness! You did an absolutely fantastic job! I am super impressed. That looks like a wonderful class to do. Will have to hit up Mr Kitty for a Christmas present I think…
Oh Lorraine it looks amazing! You never cease to astound me woman haha
I had been thinking lately that I wanted to make a wedding-ish cake. I want to learn the fondant tricks after watching all the cake shows on Foxtel lol.
I have a baby shower coming up for a friend of mine so I am thinking of doing something for that so thank you for the tips!
Lorraine your cake is amazing! You’re very hard on yourself, it looks pretty perfect to me. I now have a new-found respect for wedding cake makers and the prices they charge.
I’ve never made a wedding cake but I think if I did it wouldn’t be the traditional type after reading this!
That is one good looking Wedding cake! .. I could never get the dowels cut straight which was the down fall of the very first wedding cake that I made, which was not good esp when the cake was a whopping 5 tiers! ><!
So that’s why they cost so much. Completely justified!
I have made a wedding cake and it was SCARY. But all the love and gratitude received from the bride and groom made it worth all the sweaty palms and late nights. Oh and yes, ganaching is tricky! But you made it look so easy and the end result is fantastic, can’t wait to see what you create for The Second Wife!
Cannot pipe well to save my life but managed to make our own wedding cake (using white and dark chocolate fondant from The Cake Bible, with lots of flakes of gold leaf on top to make up for lack of piping!) and cupcakes for my brother’s wedding last year (I can JUST manage to pipe a decent swirl on a cupcake – but paid someone else to make 30 icing frangipanis to top them all – Work around your limitations I say!
I wanted to make my own wedding cake – just cupcakes. But my mother and mother in law sat me down and said “No way dear”
I found a friend who did a lovely job. I don’t know that piping that delicate pattern would be within my skill range though! Wow!
I made my first 2 tier wedding cake at the beginning of October and have made a few since… Now I am addicted!! Lol I absolutely understand the high you get when you finish
you did an amazing job on the pipe work! I always have moments when piping! Lol I also use ganache under my fondant but I love the idea of using the board on top to get an even side. Thankyou so much for this post! I think it will make my life a lot easier!!
Xo
There’s nothing like a well fondant’ed cake. Looks like a gem
Incredible!
Did you get to take it home?
That’s a dangerous amount of cake for me to have available all to myself.
Also.. what do they do with the cutoffs of cake? Do they need a home? (i.e. my belly).
Heyu, you just reminded me that I still haven’t had my wedding party…
Great job!
Faye made my husband and my wedding cake just over two years ago and people still talk about how absolutely stunning it was and also how delicious. I’d have her make my cake again any day!
Beautiful and elegant Lorraine! I now know why wedding cakes are so expensive! I think it would be easier to build a bookcase than make a wedding cake!!
How absolutely wonderful, true pieces of art. Makes me want to have my wedding all over again (I had a croque em bouche that was a crook em bush leaning tower of Pisa by the time we got to disassembling it). Putting it on a list of things to do……
Fab job Lorraine!! =) Can’t wait to see the real deal! It is quite intense decorating a one tier cake let alone two! I do admire cake decorators. Can I book you in for my wedding cake then? =D
Great job Lorraine! I think you did very well…
Hmm… yeah – I might just buy a cake… :S
Would you believe that I am making a wedding cake today?! Actually, I’m just baking the three tiers, I won’t be icing it until January. Obviously it isn’t a mud cake but a serious fruit cake. This is the second wedding cake I have baked and the first that I will be icing. Nervous? Yes!
I think you did a great job, Lorraine!! It’s very pretty!
If I were ever invited to go to a class like this, I’d be having a whole lot of meltdowns…in fact, I’m sure the whole class would be one giant meltdown!!
I have new respect for my Aunt who made our wedding cake after reading your post. At our request she had Chinese Double Happiness symbols on the cake, and before the reception my Husband and I realised they were on upside down! Thanks to our quick thinking chef the symbols were cut off and correctly re-positioned! I don’t care that they were the wrong way up – I am in awe of how she piped them in the first place!
It’s such an art isn’t it? What a terrific job you did though – very pretty
I made a dear friend’s cupcake wedding cake once. 120 cupcakes with each cupcake having 60+ cachous on it.(they looked like little jewelery boxes).I placed each cachous on using tweezers – I had RSI of the index finger that’s for sure!
Stunning effort Lorraine!
Absolutely gorgeous….Thanks a million for the detailed entry: I was reading it intensely and picturing the process in my head. I wanted to make my own wedding cake last year but sense kicked in…hehehe…I have to bake 160 wedding cupcakes and 1 small cutting cake this December for a friend but that involves buttercream. Would definitely like to try working with rolled fondant and piping those intricate lacing. Need to sign myself up for class….
Ok..two questions, what’s the X-ray buffer made of?
And what is that ‘hot’ glue you used for sticking the flowers? Is it edible?
I did a cake decorating course on the Northern Beaches last year. I made my engagement cake and have taken on the huge task of making my own wedding cake although I’m making it a bit easier by making the 4 tier cake a traditional fruit cake in advance and using fresh flowers.
wow that was amazing, I never knew ganaching a cake was so hard!
Gorgeous cake – well done.
Yes, I made and decorated the wedding cake for my Son’s wedding – I had never done it before and although I was frightfully nervous it turned out very professional looking….I found an earring which had a nice pattern on it and used that to imprint the icing – it worked beautifully and made such a nice looking pattern in the icing….I must admit though, I cheated by using artificial flowers on top.
This was really eyeopening. Who would have thought there was THAT much precision involved. It makes me truly appreciate why cakes are so expensive.
I had the privilege of having Faye do my daughter’s Christening cake 2 years ago. Seems like business is booming so much – she couldn’t fit me in for my next son’s Christening this time. Her cakes truly are the best.
The only reason I shouldn’t look too closely is because I’ll probably try to eat it if I get near enough
Amazing, Lorraine! And how wonderful where life can take you…
I love the ganache tip – so clever. I made my sisters cake last year and have put my hand up to make my bestie’s cake in December. The jury is still out in terms of piping – you are braver than me.
What a brave person you are to attempt this. The piping is hard isn’t it? I bet the finished product was beautiful and the one one you’ll be making for your friend will be perfect!
I hope she didn’t throw away that crusty top of the cake!! That’s my favorite part!!
You’ve done a brilliant job, but I think I would have burst into screams of frustrations half-way. I’ll just skip to the eating part, thank you!
Wow wow wow. I loved reading this! I have never made a wedding cake – I probably never will either! This is art, man.
Heidi xo
People keep telling me that knowing how to make wedding cakes would be a useful skill, but I doubt if I have any patience for it. Besides, I have a confession to make: I tend to get all bitter about weddings.
If I had made my own wedding cake, it would have been rather rustic looking. I admire people who can craft a cake so exquisite and perfect looking. It’s a special skill set.
i decided long ago that i would make my own wedding cake someday. crazy ambitious, i know. thank you for recommending faye’s class. I’m definitely keeping it in mind!
Omg, it’s always my dream to make the wedding cake… U did such a great job !
So interesting! I’d love to know how to make such cakes. A real beauty!
Cheers,
Rosa
I’ll stick with icing biscuits.
You are a natural Lorraine! Your cake looks spectacular!
Very well explained process and motivating post.
i haven’t made a wedding cake but I made my own 21st birthday cake – not nearly as pretty as yours – that is sterling effort and fascinating to see the work that goes into it – esp all that time on ganache – am sure you will make an amazing cake for The Second Wife
Hello Lorraine! It’s so good to meet you in class and oh my you done such a wonderful post with the vivid pictures I’m reminiscing the good times in class. Hahaha! Thanks so much for the “pic-torial”
Did I mention I sold my cake? Too painful to see it cut up in front of my eyes.
Btw, can’t wait to see your commercial. When when when???
What a terrific and terrifying way to spend the day! I was sweating with you as I read on. I do love an icing challenge and would have loved to do this class. Many years ago I enrolled in a Cake decorating class and understood just how hard it is to ice a cake perfectly. Well done Lorraine. Now what are you doing with the cake? LOL
Amazing! But one tier involves so much work…sigh…I’ll leave it to the pros =P
Wow how amazing – your cake looks truly professional. I thought about making my own wedding cake as well – and then we decided on icecream instead!
I got sweaty palms and an aching back just reading this!
You’re amazing!! That looks so professional and pretty. Would love to take a course like this, but I’m not sure I have the patience for it…
Wow, how impressive, Lorraine! The whole thing is gorgeous, and kudos to you for having the patience for the pipe work! I barely have the patience to pipe frosting on cupcakes, lol!
You did a great job
Yes, I’ve made quite a few wedding cakes, (as owner of Sweetcheeks Cookies and Cakes in Melb and Syd). I do love Fayes work, very clean, and she’s got a certain type of cake, you can always tell when it’s hers x
Well done on your first wedding cake. It looks fab.
And your extremely detailed explanation of all the steps you took, is a great read. I’ve done a few Planet Cake courses and am very interested in doing one with Faye Cahill, and it’s interesting to see the differences in technique. I’d not seen the use of the top “lid” board when ganaching, so I might have to give that a try.
And congratulations on giving the piping such a good go. I also panic a bit when it comes to piping!
Thanks for such a great post!
Dang I wish I had taken a class like this before I ever attempted some of the wedding cakes that I have made in the past. I learned everything that I know about fondant from books and in the few minutes that I read this post I have learned more than in the last four years of making wedding cakes. Thank you so much for posting this. It is definitely going to make my job easier in the future. Oh and by the way I have got to ask. Is that the first wedding cake you have ever made because I’ve got to tell you it’s an amazing first try? Mine was horrible and riddled with blemishes that thankfully were covered up easily with the immense amount of flowers that the bride wanted on her cake. Awesome job.
wowwww! that looks fantastic!
great job! I don’t think I’d have patience.
Wow! Well done!! That looks fantastic. That is my dream – to learn how to make art out of cake. Beautiful stuff there!
The cake looks great! Since it is your first time, what is there to pick? I can’t even pipe!
I’ve saved all this information, thanks for all the wonderful tips, I love making cakes, but I have never attempted a wedding cake
beautiful. i took a cake decorating class once, and it was a lot of fun. now i want to take another one!
I had no idea all the steps that are involved to create a gorgeous wedding cake. Yours looks fabulous! xoxo Mum
What a wonderful class! The cakes do look perfectly executed!
Love this post! So detailed & your cake looks fabulous!
I made a heap of white chocolate mud cupcakes for my wedding cake & bought the top tier from a bakery. We iced the cupcakes in varying shades of pink & I attached pink organza ribbon around the top tier & pink icing hearts on wires
That’s awesome!
i wish i attended one of her class before making my friend’s 21st cake =P
Oh wow, it does look like a wedding cake indeed- and an absolutely gorgeous one at that!
Apologies for being late to the party but congrats on the book deal, Lorraine!
Amazing, such intricate work too. Love your cake
Wow, what an effort. I guess this explains why wedding cakes can cost so bloody much.
Lots of handy tips!
Very detailed and informative post there. Now I know one thing I will never attempt to make! Well done! I think I would go crazy with all that detail.
Wow looks great! Faye Cahill made my wedding cake – was so happy with it and tasted divine
Great post, Lorraine. I’ve taken a decorating course where we did wedding cakes, but these ganache tips weren’t taught. Thanks so much.
Though I have to say – pencil contains lead, which is poisonous. Did you use a different sort of pencil or is that really lead on her cakes?
Oh wow Lorraine I am truly impressed with your cake. I’m horrendous at ganache and never am able to get it beautiful and smooth! Thanks for the detailed tutorial.
I had to make a wedding cake in pastry school. It turned out fine, but I’m not a fan of cake making so I didn’t try very hard. I’m actually going to do the cake as part of my maid of honorly duties for my BFF’s wedding, but they want to go with cupcakes and tiny pies instead of one cake.
i’m so excited that i actually knew most of that process! putting into action is another story…
Goodness, what a lot of work goes into that, you can see why wedding cakes are so expensive.
I made 100 cupcakes for a friend of a friend’s wedding recently and she also wanted a simple white cake for slicing – I’ve not blogged it yet. She was perfectly happy with it but all I could see were the imperfections. I can never stop my fondant creasing and cracking over the edges and I don’t know how people tuck it in round the base of the cake so tidily.
I did ganache a chocolate cake like that once, I followed the instructions in Planet Cake so I know all about “hot knifing”!
this is totally my fave post from your blog.. i learned so much about wedding cakes .. i would loove to do a faye cahill class (if only the budget afforded it!)
What a delightful post! Thanks Lorraine. Yes, I have made a wedding cake – my own, many years ago. It was ok, but I didn’t have to proper tools and I had to disguise so much!! I am making a friend’s daughter’s cake soon and I hope to use your ideas. Wish me luck!
Avanika – pencils no longer contain lead.
I love your cake, it is so beautiful! Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to chronicle it here for us. Yes, I will be apprenticing with a master cake decorator and making my first wedding cake in June. {biting nails}
I can’t wait and am excited though!
Hi NQN, I have been reading about your cake decorating classes and wanted to know who do you think has been the best at teaching and where do you get the best value for money
It looks Wonderful good on ya!
Thank you so much for posting this. I was seriously thinking of flying to Sydney to work out how to make ganaching easier. I am going to try this – I think you have given me a day back with my family. Thank you!
When you are ganaching, can you use buttercream instead of ganache? And when you lift off the top silver cake dome how come the top isn’t all messed up from that being stuck to it while you were doing the sides??
Thanks, Sandie
I actually made my sister’s wedding cake when she was married in Italy (we came in from Canada). Although I brought a lot of fondant and other supplies, the actual fondant rolling part was eventually done with….a waste paper basket (?!) I never thought I had to bring a rolling pin!! Some minor flaws, but the locals were impressed (phew!)
Thank you so much NQN, this post was a great help while making a 2 tier wedding cake last week. Although I’ve made tiered cakes before, I wanted this one to be perfect and look professional for such an important day. And it paid off woohoo:)
You did an excellent job! Just wondering why she transferred pencil lead directly onto the cake people would be eating??? I’ve been teaching cake decorating for several years and would never tell someone to do that!
What a great tutorial, and a great teacher! I made my own 2tier wedding cake, finished it 2 nights prior to the wedding. It was the first fancy cake decorating I’d ever done. It was fondant and royal icing (no ganache)and I spent what seemed like a week asking people questions about technique. This tutorial is great.wish I’d seen it earlier.
I think you did great. What a cool experience!
i love the cake
I am going to try this one!!
You did a great job with the cake all round. I know how hard it is to pipe and I’m still not much good at it. I have made a wedding cake for my brother.
I must say I was very proud of it but I cheated and used fake flowers, butterflies etc. Still looked great and those who don’t know thought it was professionally made:)
Wow!Your cake looks pro, nothing less! Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us, I can tell that you had a great time
This technique for getting sharp edges is absolutely helpful, thank you! It also seems to use a lot of ganashe and Im sure that you guys in Au only works with good quality chocolate. Im curius to hear if it makes cakes very expensive or maybe the chocolate over there is not expensive? Thank you so much once again, God bless you
fantastic tutorial, getting into making my own cakes. Thank you so much.
as very nice and perfect…good luck,i seen somethind then i put the my memory thank all of u….GOOD JOB……
just found this site. Love making cakes, would love to know the best technique to start piping with royal icing like on wedding cakes. Good job!
thank you so much for the amazing article..you are precise and generous with sharing infromation..thanks again.
Hello, Firstly, I have to say your cakes are absolutely gorgeous!! For me, I have been baking various shaped cakes and cupcakes for quite a number of years now, but have just recently decided to raise the bar for myself and start making tiered cakes. I have a small question for you and that is, I notice that a lot of your cakes seem to be very high and I was wondering, do you use 2 cakes per cake to make the height or do you use a foam fake cake under the real cake? My cake tins are 3 inches high and even iced don’t appear to be as high as yours. If you can give me any tips with regards to this, I would very much appreciate it Thanks heaps, Lyn
Hi,
I’m looking for the chocolate mud cake recipe that was used to make these lovely cake tiers?
Hi Robbie! Most cake makers buy their cakes from Mondo Cakes. If you really want to make a mud cake from scratch, here is one: http://www.notquitenigella.com/2012/12/25/vintage-christmas/
Hi NQN, thanks so much for this tutorial. I only just found it but it is going in my favourites. I have done a few cake courses, and have now done quite a few birthday/engagement/special occasion cakes, but it is still nice to be reminded about why we do things the way we do them.
I am doing my first wedding cake next week – eeekk – a huge three tier, 7″, 10″ and 13″ round, for a friend of a friend. A bit nervous about it but at least I know how to do all the decorating (and no piping, thank god!!). I think I am actually more nervous about getting it to the reception place in one piece!!
Lyn, I make most of my cakes quite high as well. However, rather than try to bake one large (high) cake, I actually bake two cakes per tier, normally around 2″ high, then I cut the (normally) crusty tops off and stack them one on top of the other, with ganache in between. So it is as if I have cut a very high cake in half. My cakes usually end up around 4″ – 4.5″ in height once ganached and iced. Hope that helps!
I love ganaching my cake with the discs, it comes out absolutely perfect with razor sharp edges, the way I would love for the cake once I apply the fondant. One problem, with my edges so sharp, I have not been able to put the fondant on without the edges cutting right through my fondant. I’ve tried rolling the fondant very thin, somewhat thin and a little thicker, and no matter what thickness, my fondant is cut at the edge every time. I so want to know How you keep this from happening?
Wow! Two thumbs up for the amazing cake… Well done! Lorraine…I really love the simplicity of it.
I just wanted to say thank you so much for your detailed tutorial. I only hope I can do half a good a job as you. I am in the process of making a wedding cake for my step daughters wedding and am attempting the same style as you have made- minus the piping work lol it’s my first wedding cake besides a trial I made of part of it on the weekend . Can you freeze the cake with the ganache on it and then put the fondant on later ? Or do you know if you can freeze it with both on ? Thanks
Hi
Can you tell me how long a wedding cake can be stored using your ganache method covered in fondant
Many Thanks
Julie
Hi Julie, you can keep it for about a week like this.
On the greaseproof paper did you use an actual lead pencil? Why would you want that on your cake??? Or was it some type of food safe pencil and if so waht type/brand?
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