Guest blog by B-Twin
Making a Wedding Cake
Part 1B: The Cake – Covering
Continuing on from Part 1A – Baking we now move to covering the cake. The purpose of covering the cake in this case is to make the cake a suitable base for decorations.
There are several common ways to cover cakes. The term “icing” (as a noun) gets flung about very easily. It could mean ganache (chocolate + cream), basic icing (icing sugar + water), frosting (icing sugar + milk/water + butter etc), fondant (icing sugar + glucose syrup + other sugary stuff), royal icing (icing sugar + egg white) or even buttercream (whipped butter + other stuff)! Here in Australia we use more fondant as a covering for wedding cakes than, say, royal icing or buttercream. This is possibly due to weather influences. Fruit cakes covered with fondant become airtight and keep very well. This is one aspect I really like! The other is that fondant provides a beautiful surface to decorate with flowers and foliage. More on that later.
The brief for this Work In Progress was: oval cakes, 2-3 tiers, gold board, ribbon around the cake and jasmine^ as the flowers. (The bride isn’t into fussy or “busy” decorations). There was also a request for a moon or star gate – to which I said “too hard!!!”
Step 1: Preparation
Remember how we finished up with the baked cakes in Part 1A? Here’s a pic of the top tier still sitting in the tin to refresh your memory…
The decision was to do three tiers of cake – two just didn’t seem like it would be enough height to really drape jasmine on.
After carefully measuring the height of the cakes the top of each cake is removed so that they are all the same height. The cake is then turned upside down, which provides a nice level surface, and any little holes due to fruit shrinkage are filled in with a little fondant. Personally, I use 2 layers to cover my cakes. The first layer would be marzipan — in an ideal world — or “almond” paste. The second layer is the white or coloured fondant. The two layers enable a beautifully smooth finish.
(sorry it is a little blurry..)
Step 2: Almond Fondant / Marzipan
Rule 1: Cleanliness. All surfaces, including your hands, must be spotless. I can guarantee that fondant will collect every grain of dirt otherwise.
The marzipan/almond paste is kneaded like plasticine until pliable (just how pliable is a judgement that comes with practice) and then rolled out to a thickness of about ¼ inch. The cake is brushed with either sugar syrup or warmed apricot jam^^ to assist the sticking of the marzipan. The rolled marzipan is then carefully placed over the cake and smoothed down, cutting away the excess until you are left with this:
In this case it is “almond-flavoured” fondant as the first layer. (An average 8” square cake uses about $12 worth of real marzipan …)
Step 3: Fondant
The process outlined above in Step 2 is now repeated with the top coat of fondant (either white or coloured) except I tend to use sugar syrup or just plain water to dampen the surface slightly before the next layer goes on rather than jam. You can wait a few days in between the layers or, if you are careful, you can do it all on the same day. (Sometimes the lower layer shifts when you are putting the top layer on. Not good.)
Decoration that involves scoring or marking patterns on the fondant needs to be done before the fondant dries too much (within half an hour would be best). Once that has been done I leave the fondant to set before much more handling.
Rule 2: Water – be very careful with water when around fondant or royal icing! Sugar dissolves rather easily…
Step 4: Assembling the cakes
This is a weighty issue – don’t underestimate how heavy fruit or mud cakes are!
This is easiest done when the icing on all the cake tiers is set and therefore can be handled without leaving indents all over them.
First, each cake tier is secured to its own board with either a dollop of royal icing or a thin little “pancake” of fondant that has been dampened to make it sticky on both sides. This provides a solid base for each cake when they are assembled.
Then, preparations need to be made for the support of each tier in the assembled cake. This is done by using skewers. “Skewers?!” you say, “Like a satay stick? But they’re used on the BBQ! They couldn’t possibly hold a cake up!” You’re right. A satay stick wouldn’t hold a cake up! Which is why we use something a little sturdier. Something about the thickness of a pencil; made of hardwood, not bamboo.
Top: Cake Skewer; Bottom: Satay Stick
The skewers are measured to the height of the cake tier so that they will sit flush with the top of the fondant. Then cut to size before insertion into the cake tier.
Each cake tier that will be supporting another needs 3-4 skewers inserted – depending on the size of the cake/s. The skewers are inserted point first. For this project I used 3 skewers into the bottom cake to support the middle tier and then another 3 in the middle tier to support the top tier. (If you only use 2 skewers per level you run the risk of it being unbalanced and have a cake-tastrophy. Not a fun prospect for a wedding day!)
Once all the appropriate levels have their skewers in place it is time to carefully (and with much trepidation) position each tier on top of the other as designed. If the cake is to be transported assembled then it may be very wise to place a dab of royal icing between the tiers to cement^^^ them together. The boards under each level mean that the skewers can’t press up into the cake above and the load is distributed evenly.
The 3 tiers assembled
Once all the tiers are all in place then royal icing is piped around the base of each cake to cover the join and provide that extra adhesive effect to the ensemble.
Stay tuned for Part 2: Decorations!
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^ I have never done jasmine before*. I am a sucker.
* in icing, well sugar modelling paste to be exact. More on that later too. ;)
^^ “Why??” was Robin’s question in regard to apricot jam. I don’t really know. But it is possibly because it goes very well with almond flavours as well as not having sharp tastes or little berry seeds.
^^^ Yes. Exactly.
^^^^ Never, EVER insert pins or wires into a cake!!!
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