Hey My Cake Central Friends!!! Hope ya'll all had a great day~ I did & I am now exhausted!!!!!!!! I really didn't know how much time was needed to do a wedding cake!!!!! NOW I DO!! I was so behind that I didn't get the cake to the FD before everyone got there. SO... I had to finish smoothing, stacking, & decorate w/ all the Fire Fighters & EMS personel there watching me!! Ahhhhhhhhhh!!! that was nerve racking!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh... I'm having flash backs!!!!! I even missed our HAZMAT training

I wanted to share the whole story so maybe someone will learn by my mistakes so here goes...

I made all the icing last night. Then today I iced & smoothed the cakes. They were 12", 14", & 16" round. The icing wouldn't crust so I put a fan on it to help it dry. Well it never crusted! I figure it was the humidity here in LA. We don't ever have a day w/out humidity I was able to get the smooth look. I had to work harder at getting it though which took too long! Got all the cakes iced & smoothed except one. I had to smooth that one at the FD because I was running late!! That was bad because I NEVER run late for anything!!

My daughter got home from school so she helped me finish up. She cut the dowel rods for me & put them in the cakes while I colored my red icing & got everything else ready to put in the van. That was a good thing!!! My daughter helped me load my van up. I also got help from our neighbor. He put the bottom cake in the van for me because it was too heavy for me to pick up (I hurt my back in May). My hubby & son were already at the FD. The trip to the FD went great! No mess ups!!

Get to the FD had plenty of strong Fire men (oooh, laaa, laa!!! ) to take the cakes inside. I started smoothing the last cake while everyone bothered me My hubby helped me stack the cake. Right before we stacked each layer I noticed that the dowel rods weren't all the same size I had forgotten to tell my daughter to make sure they were the exact same size! She only had them off a tiny bit but it made
the the layers unlevel a little. Then when my hubby & I were stacked the cakes he put his big fingers in the cake in several places!!! Ahhhhh!! So I had to smooth all layers again!! Things went great after I fixed the boo-boo's!! Thank God!!

I decorated the cake w/ FD nick-nacks, fire trucks, dalmations, wilton FD candles, 2 FD poems in frames & found a cute stand up dalmation doll at the station so I used it in my display too!! I never got a chance to get ribbon to put on it. It looked great!!!!!

I did not get the cakes as smooth as I wanted because I was running behind. So I learned from that. I will start alot earlier when I ice & smooth the "real" wedding cake!! In doing this practice run I also realized that 12,14 & 16 doesn't look good for the type of cake the bride wants. She wants ribbon & there really wasn't enough room for ribbon because the cake were only an inch larger then each other. I guess the icing took up space from it?? I got rave reviews from everyone! They really liked the taste of my cake (yellow cake from Cake Mix Dr. book) & icing (calidawn's BCI). The cake was so moist but had a scratch texture to it. Wasn't crumbly at all!! One of the F Men decorates cakes too. He cut a very small piece of cake to test the texture! He said it was just perfect! It didn't drop one crumb & it didn't even hang down when he held the piece out straight!! So now I know I have the cake part down!!

Thanks to everyone for their help in this!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!! Also... I have guestions........

1. How can I do a cake to feed 200 put get my layers looking nicer & do only 3 layers (4 if it can be done by a newbie)? I really don't want to go up to 18" on the bottom but if I have to I will.

2. Should all layers be 4" larger then each other? I know you need to get a box 4" larger so you have room to lift your cake out of it. Please help me pick the size. This cake really didn't have enough room on each layer to do much decorating.

3. Any other suggestions will be wonderful!!!!!!

Thanks for reading my silly story!!!
I will hopefully be posting pictures tomorrow! I will let everyone know when I do!!!

Blessing to all~ ~Tina~ aka tcturtleshell~

OH>>>> I forgot to add something.. another disaster... My daughter & the neighbor took the back seat out of the van for the cakes. Well I had them put the seat under the carport.......... My hubby left the FD before I did... I bet you can guess where this is leading... I FORGOT TO TELL HIM THE SEAT WAS UNDER THE CARPORT!!!!!!!!! He has a big dodge ram truck (fire engine red ).... welllllllllllllllllll he ran into the van seat!!!!!!!!!!! He didn't hurt the seat but it put a dent in the bumper of the truck. Needless to say he was very angry w/ me when I got home about an hour later!!! But he wasn't too angry because he cleaned my messy kitchen up for me!!! That was a big blessing!!!!!! Now that I made ya'll laugh I will close this post...... Good night to all~ Thanks again!!

Great story Tina, you have put down perfectly what we all feel like and go through at times, and that we all have learned the hard way also! I did a stacked 14, 10 & 6 @3" deep, no filling and it looked too squatty. Bride didn't want it tiered, and the decorations she picked out looked "gumbly" (for lack of a better word) on the practice cake that I did so I wound ivy and ribbon around it. Practice cakes are good ideas, but all that cake you don't want to waste so we eat it...

I hope to remember this if I ever do a wedding cake. I think I am still under that level so I won't even try until I feel comfortable....especially since I have yet gotten a good rose down! So I can stick to special occassion cakes and birthday cakes.... I have been lucky not one person wanted flowers on their cake. Though i did do a small heart cake for a friends anniversary cake and put little flowers on it.... no roses! I need to get over my fear of all of this!!!!!!!!!!!! With help from all here and you TC I will become a better decorator........

What a good story- thanks for sharing.
If your icing had crusted for you it probably would not have taken as long
If you made a 8,12,16 cake- would the bride be interested in having a sheet cake to make up the lack of servings? That way you would have room for decorations, but still have enough servings.

Great story. Before I did my first wedding cake (a few weeks ago), I thought what takes so long. I have heard estimates of a week. NOW I KNOW. I will never doubt it again. I took hints from icing the cake upside down. I iced the sides and then took a cardboard a little larger than the top of mine and drew an outline of the cake on it 1/4 inch bigger that the cake, glued down some wax paper to it (with icing) and iced that. I put it in the frezer to get it hard and then spread a thin layer of icing on the top of my cake. I put the cold icing (from the freezer) on the top of the cake. Walla, smooth and level top. Yee ha! it worked . Now if I can figure out how to get the sides smooth . I am working on the patience .

Thanks for sharing the story!

Hey it's me again... I didn't get the pics done today ... I went to bed last night around 1am (my usual time is midnight). I can sleep later because I older kids & I'm not working right now. Well.... I was so tired when I went to bed & I didn't want to wake my hubby up so I slept in the spare BR. My hubby took a day off. He came in the room at 1:30pm to wake me up!!!! He said he went into the room about 5 different times to see if I was breathing!!!! LOL!! I was just exhausted from being on my feet sooooo long!!! I've been having very bad swelling in my feet & also they've been hurting big time for about a month. I'm going to the dr. Fri to see why! Hubby put me on complete bed rest until Fri! He would ring my neck if he knew I was online right now.

Anyway... thanks for reading my post. I wanted to reply to what ya'll wrote.

Mchelle...
I've been wanting to try the upside down icing technique but haven't had to time. I will try it one day. As far a time consuming.. I did bake all the cakes last week. Wrapped them & froze them. Thawed them out on Sunday & left them on the counter top wrapped till yesterday. I made my icing Monday & made lots more then I needed because I have 2 bday cake due Fri. & Sat. (My daughter will have to help me because I don't know if I can stand up that long.) So the only thing I had to do yesterday was ice & smooth, stack them & get them to FD, then put a border & decorate. The worst thing was getting that icing to crust! If it wasn't for that I would have been finished in 3 hours (that's still slow in my opinion but I am new at this right!). I started at noon & finished icing & smoothing all 3 cakes by 3pm. Other then that I think everything went pretty good!

mOuse...
I agree with you completely!!! I am going to call the bride tomorrow & tell her that's I'm going to do 8",12",16". But you know what? I just thought of something... the cake is for 200 but I am also doing the groom's cake for 100 but I'm doing 2 layers of that & stacking an 8" square on top of that!! It will be basket weave sooo I can put cardboard under the top cake, & also on the two 8" All together that should feed about 400 people!!! SO their actually getting more cake then they wanted! I will do just that!!! I've already had problems w/ the glitter ribbon so I think this will be ok. BUT I will talk to her first. Let me know what you think ok!

Flayvurdfun...
You will get those roses down!!! Just practice!! And remember not one person has roses that look like another persons!!!!!!!! SO.... your roses are original!!!!! Just figure out a way that they look to you & practice that. We are our worse critics so you will know if their good or not!! Right!! As for the dowel rods... they weren't as hard as I thought they were going to be. They cut easier then I thought they would. Thank God for my daughter helping me! And yes.. I'm sticking to special occasion cakes!! Unless my cousin decides she's getting married in May. I will do that wedding cake.

jscakes...
I wish the bride had chosen ivy! That would cover up any holes on the layers!!!! But she chose ribbon. I will do a dot border around it so hopefully it won't look too bad. Have you done that cake wedding cake yet? I bet is was great!! If you posted it tell me where I want to look at it. IF you have any suggestions for me please offer them!! I need all the help I can get. I'm doing pretty good but I still welcome any help~

Talk to you folks later~

Hi Tina-
I think that is more than fine. This way people can decide what type of cake they want, and if there's leftovers people can take the extra cake home.
Get some rest!!! And hope everything turns out ok. Make sure you are drinking lots of fluids- like water and 7up- that may help with the swelling.
Take care,
m0use

Thanks mOuse! I'm so pooped it's unbelievable! I have been drinking so much water that I have been running to the pottie

Hey I posted my FD cake! Take a look & tell me what you think~

Where did you post your cake at? under which category? I want to check it out!!

I like it. I like how you have the ladders coming up the sides of the cake. Good job!

I found it! You did a great job and I liked the laders also.

I'm sorry midwestmom, I haven't been online since yesterday evening. I haven't checked posts. Thanks for taking a look at it! I liked the crooked ladders too!