Hello November! So nice to see you – and my summer wardrobe!! I’d forgotten that clothing doesn’t need to be layered up and zipped away. The warmer days have me venturing outside to fend off the weeds in the garden…more often! Depending on your social circle, you might have noticed that it’s also a popular time of the year for weddings, which has me reminiscing about the last wedding cake I did and haven’t (yet) shared.

Although I try to use this platform to catalogue and share new recipes (or variations of existing ones), you may have noticed that I also like to document my progress with cake decorating and give away any tips I’ve gotten during the process. You’ll have guessed by now that this post is the latter type…

*Rubs hands together*

This cake was a turning point for my fondant skills – you could cut yourself on those #sharpedges – and I also got to try out several techniques that were new to me. It also felt like a step up in sophistication on my earlier designs.

C & S, the lovely groom and bride, were very kind to let me have a lot of creative input into their cake design. They appeased my pleading for some practice with fondant, they agreed to the touch (= dollop) of gold lustre, and were happy to include a pretty stencil pattern.

The gorgeous shot above and the equally lovely ones to follow were taken by the talented Liz of Distant Sea Photography, who shot the reception photos. Thanks to her, there’s even that ‘action’ shot of me touching up the cake!

I enjoyed getting the hang of stenciling for this cake. This particular one (Seamless Filigree) comes from Evil Cake Genius online and is a fabulous addition to a formal (or fun!) cake. Photos further down show how I applied it using their clever tulle overlay method.

These little white roses were made using individual petal cutters. Someday soon I’d like to try wiring the petals, but simple was suitable here.

Here are some progress shots to explain the ‘how?!’ for this cake 🙂 First up, covering the ganached cakes and creating the sharp edge around the top. From top to bottom, left to right: one tier with white fat applied to ensure fondant adheres; ‘ghost’ mode (fondant just applied, no trimming); some of the excess fondant trimmed and on top of a cake tin for a closer shave; said-shave; upside-down for sharpening the edge and the final trim; edging along; right-side-up finishing the top surface; and a very edgy result.

Next, stenciling over tulle and applying the navy band to the middle tier – all a bit more self-explanatory than the above! Unfortunately I don’t have any shots of the gold lustre application – you’ll have to use your imagination to picture me shaking Rolkem Majestic Gold dust EVERYWHERE and finally getting it to mix with rose spirit, then slathering two coats onto the top and middle tiers with many back-and-forth brushstrokes to try and minimise the tracks.

It’s good to think that I’m improving, and this cake was one in a long line of good learnings that stretched me to gain new skills and see results. And to see that I still have much more to learn…

That’s all about this cake now. After a bit of a break from caking, I’ve recently had a spate of cakertunities (cake-opportunities, of course!) which will take me just about through to Christmas. I’m undecided if I’ll post some inspirational seasonal ideas before December 25th, or if I’ll come up with something creative to use up leftover fruit cake with! We’ll see… best wishes with your own holiday preparations either way xo