Homemade Wedding Cake

Quite possibly the first thing I envisioned for our wedding was a DIY cake made by myself.

I have made many cakes in the last 4 years or so for family and friends. Birthday cakes, graduation cakes, groom's cake... some had my homemade buttercream on them, some had fondant coverings, some were sheet-cakes, some were tiered cakes. They were all delicious, of course ;o)

But I have never had the opportunity to rise up to the challenge of making a wedding cake. They have to look and taste good while being structurally sound.

So I prepped for this cake like any other cake I make: I made a sketch, made recipes, and designed it up. We chose to make a 3-tier multi-flavored wonderment covered in ivory textured buttercream and fresh flowers. Of course we got the bunny cake topper!

My Design

You may or may not know but Shawn and I are organic foodies. So choosing the ingredients for my cakes is not as typical as picking out a box-mix and walking to the checkout at Hy-Vee. I use whole wheat pastry flour, farm eggs, non-homogenized whole milk, real unsalted pastured-cow butter, and the like. This makes for a high-quality texture cake with an amazing fresh flavor. I was even told by the neighbor [who mills his own wheat] at the wedding that "I make good cake."

The top layer was green tea for us, middle layer was animal cracker (everyone's request and favorite), and the bottom was good ol' marble.

Unfortunately, being a bride and baking your cake doesn't always work out. Fortunately I was able to bake it. More fortunately, while Shawn and I had to run off to meet with the DJ (before all hell broke loose Wednesday night starting with the bachelor/bachelorette) my wonderful Maid of Honor Meaghan and Shawn's (and now my!) Aunt Dee helped to ice it and assemble each layer! I showed them my design, what I wanted the icing to look like and they. just. did it. Like freakin' Nike.

When I finally got to see it after Aunt Dee assembled it at the wedding venue, I just got all teary! I had made a wedding cake, finally! And although I didn't get to decorate it all by myself, it was even more special to me that I was able to let it go and trust my family to help me. I learned so much just from that cake!

PS: At the end of the night, one of Shawn's friends who had jokingly told me he would be taking the rest of they cake home--did. It was half of that large bottom layer there. The whole thing. Gone.

PPS: At least someone got to eat it! We only got the piece we gave to each other... oh well!