Wedding cake success!

Well, Readers, after two and a half months of planning, testing, practicing, baking, decorating, the wedding cake is (well, WAS, since it was entirely eaten within twenty minutes of me slicing it) finished!

Yikes, I really messed up the piping on the top tier...

All in all, Readers, I think I can say that this isn't a bad result. Not too shabby for my first-ever wedding cake!

Here are the cakey details:

The bottom layer was a dark chocolate cake, filled with ganache. The recipe I used is FANTASTIC, and can be found here: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Double-Chocolate-Layer-Cake-101275

The second tier is Martha Stewart's Whipped Cream Cake, filled with the same icing that's seen on the sides of the cake. That recipe can't be found online, I'm afraid; but it CAN be found in "The Martha Stewart Cookbook: Collected Recipes for Everyday."

The top tier is Martha Stewart's Sour Lemon Cake I. Again, this recipe is not found on the internet, folks, but can be found in same cookbook. I filled that one up with an imported lemon curd.

The icing recipe I ended up using is one of the BEST. TASTING. ICING. RECIPES. IN. THE HISTORY. OF. THE. UNIVERSE. You guys, seriously, if you're making a cake for a special occasion, you simply MUST try making some of this wonderful stuff:

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/07/project-wedding-cake-swiss-buttercream/

Readers, for a cake of this size, the recipe calls for TEN. STICKS. OF. BUTTER.

The tree and apples were made from gumpaste.

My brother and his lovely wife very generously offered up their enormous kitchen, so that I may create this glorious beast without losing my mind.

The cake layers were baked at my mother's house about two weeks ago. We froze them, and transported them in a cooler with some dry ice so that they could stay frozen and not lose their flavor.

On the day before the wedding, I arrived at my brother's house and started work on torting, filling and decorating the layers at around 7:30 pm.

I finished the cake at around 5 am.

Whew!

Now that THAT's over, I can turn my attention towards the upcoming holiday craft fair! I will keep you posted, Readers!

Orb Weaver Out!

<3