I know I could make us a great cake for very little money, but my mom and married friends assure me I will be plenty busy come wedding time. When I inquired at some local bakeries, I found that they had hiked up the prices considerably in the past few years. A. Because they can, and they make insanely beautiful stuff and people will buy it and B. Because it's very stressful and hard to make wedding cakes. Before going back to college for OT I was in the process of opening a bakery specializing in unique wedding cakes. I recently found our business plan and designs a few weeks ago when unpacking, and couldn't help but wonder if I made the right choice. It's always been my dream to open my own shop, and we were so close we could taste the buttercream. We viewed several locations, researched and met with LEED certified green builders, began networking and were just looking for the loan and the right spot. It would have been great, but in the end the funds just weren't attainable for our early twenties asses. Owning a business also requires no health insurance, long hours full of back-breaking work and the risk of if it doesn't work out, you're up shit creek for with no hope of a paddle.
I made at least 50 wedding cakes in my time as a baker. Several of them for our fledgling business, in my 3rd story apartment that was hotter than hell itself I'm fairly certain. It was usually quite stressful, especially if you do it alone. It's also very hard on your hands and wrists, and every time I was finished, the awe of admiring and finished product was usually done whilst rubbing my aching carpal tunnel.
So, while I still wonder if I'll feel up to making my own cake, I am having a lot of fun looking at the beautiful creations the talented local bakers in the Twin Ports produce, as well as on the internet. While I can't say I miss it too much, I do miss admiring the works of sugary art! I just wanted to share two of my favorite wedding cakes I made over the years on the blog this time, as Thanksgiving is just finishing up and most people aren't cooking for a week or two.
This was made about 5 years ago when I was working in a bakery My manager didn't believe how long it would actually take us to make this, and it turned out to be about 17 hours total. This was partly because the gorgeous nasturtium flowers they ordered kept dying and the candied violets we'd slaved over got some hot beets placed under them and half of them turned to mush, and we had to try to quickly re-do them. It was marbled yellow and a rich devil's food cake with fudge in each layer, and a white buttercream. A sympathetic co-worker went and picked some better flowers from her garden for us to use, and I believe we kissed her with happiness. It was elegant and amazing when it was done, but I think I drank an entire box of ginger tea from the stress.
This is my other absolute favorite cake I made. They had a very natural wedding, so I used snowball flowers and small butterflies with wire. I also made that cake topper, by trying to pretend like I was a bird and make a nest. It was a layer of white cake with raspberry cream, a layer of yellow cake with lemon curd, and a layer of chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. It was remarkably lovely as well as painstaking. It was also a great relief that it turned out, because I was just beginning to get really sick with Lyme disease and started to have hand tremors from the infection as I was doing the finishing touches.
So, I may hand the stress into the hands of another for my own wedding, but it would be pretty special to make my own too I guess. Only time will tell!
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