It all started a few months before the big day. The bottom tier was fruit cake and was done under supervision by a professional baker, my grandad :) He advised (and it definately was needed) a new clean bucket as I didn't have any bowls big enough to take the volume of a 12" cake, my biggest yet.
Here's it all mixed in using a cake tin that's seen more wedding cakes in it's life than Elizabeth Taylour.
It was so heavy going in the oven! A few nervous hours later it came out smelling lovely and was cooled then wrapped up to mature.
The other tiers were a 10" chocolate madeira and a 8" lemon madeira. I made them a few weeks before and froze them undecorated. They came out fine and were filled with (a whole jar of) choclate spread and lemon buttercream respectively. In fact they defrosted in a few hours which was lucky as I had actually forgotten to take them out of the freezer the night before!
Actually stacking the cake was pretty scary but was fun. I used wooden dowells and pushed them into the fruit cake, then removed aand cut to the hightest length.The middle tier was stacked on top. My 2 tier birthday cake was a good practice for using dowells, especially as I found that plastic ones are tricky to cut as they 'squished' instead of leaving a nice flat edge. The top tier went on with pillars which were a bit harder than they looked! One of them sank into the middle tier a bit as the dowell was slightly too short but it wasn't noticable unless you looked carefully. I don't have any pictures as I didn't have enough hands.
The design was from my previous lace cake, as it was simple, easy and relatively quick. I don't think I could have handled the stress of fancy piping. I used thicker fondant than last time to remove the lumps and bumps and create a smoother effect, though I have since invested in an icing smoother that might have come in useful. The lace was also great for hiding a not so perfect edges. I also covered the top and bottom cake boards with fondant to finish the look. In the end I chose ivory as it was such a rich colour and matched my dress, plus the pillars came to match the icing.
My toppers were nearly more elaborate flowers. I'd looked in the shops for a bride and groom topper but they were all ugly in my opinion. I spotted these the week before and ordered thinking if they came on time all well and good if not I'd do more flowers. Luckily they arrived in a few days to finish it off and they're now safe on my mantlepiece.
Here's a picture of the final result. There are a few things I'd do differently if I was making another one but I love it and am so pleased with how it looked. Unfortunatley I can't tell you how it tasted, I was too full after dinner and it got eaten over the rest of the night!
