The wedding cake.
After 'What's the Dress like?', it was the second Most Frequently Asked Question About Our Wedding. Perhaps it was because I'm known for my insatiable sweet tooth. Possibly it was because I write a baking blog.
Of course, firstly, I contacted the experts. Unfortunately, Mary Berry was busy writing her one thousand two hundred and fiftieth cookbook. Dan Lepard was down under. And both Nigella Lawson and Paul Hollywood were too distracted by affairs of the heart occupying newspaper headlines (it would seem terribly inappropriate to discuss wedding cakes, of all cakes, under such circumstances).
So I turned to the rich-n-famous. I could be inspired by fashion, Hollywood glamour and influenced by royalty. Or simply be overawed by height (a seven ft for a wedding cake, really?!).
In the end we I decided on a Cake Table. Much to the disappointment of some of our more literal guests, this wasn't a table made out of cake but a table groaning under the weight of all our favourite cakes!
Long evenings were spent narrowing down our favourites and compiling and testing recipes. The baking proved very much a family affair. While I excitedly finished work, deliberated the ratio of bikini to mosquito spray for the honeymoon (2:3) and considered a last minute fake tan (I went for the
Talk about team work. The Apprentice's Lord Sugar would be suitably envious.
We had Carrot Cake, heart-shaped Welsh cakes (aww!), Brownies, mini Victoria Sponges, tiffin, Bara Brith, Coconut Squares, Coffee and Walnut cake, battenburg, Cupcakes, Lemon Drizzle Cakes and a lovely two tier iced Fruit Cake for cutting (pictured up top)! Each were placed on lovely glass cake stands and the table decorated with blue hydrangeas and yellow bunting.
On the glorious Wedding Day itself, the cakes were the dessert during the wedding breakfast. Each table were presented with a three tier cake stand with a delicious selection of the cakes to pick-n-mix from. I was informed afterwards that it became very competitive on certain tables!
The Welsh Cake recipe can be found here. The carrot cake recipe here. If you fancy a bit of Bara Brith, here's the recipe. And we used Delia's fine fruit cake recipe and Nigel's recipe for Brownies which proved so popular, as always. And as for the other cakes I will post them here over the next few months.
Terrific Wedding Day Tiffin
(just seen in the bottom left of the photo above)
For the biscuit base:
100g raisins
2 tbsps orange juice
50g mixed peel
250g Digestive biscuits
100g dark chocolate
100g milk chocolate
150g unsalted butter
2 tbsp golden syrup
To decorate:
150g melted while chocolate
1. Line a 20cm x 20cm square tin with cling film. Pop the raisins in a small dish and pour over the juice. Set aside for a few hours if possible to nicely plump up the dried fruit.
2. Place the biscuits in a food bag and bang the biscuits to crush them into gravel sized pieces with a rolling pin. Perfect for pre wedding stress.
3. Melt the dark and milk chocolate, butter and syrup in a small glass bowl suspended over a pan of gently simmering water
4. Stir in the biscuits and all the dried fruit
5. Spoon the mixture into the square tin. Pour the white chocolate and pour over the biscuit base. Pop in the fridge for a few hours to set.
Bakery's notes...
- Previously on What Kate Baked... Soured Cherry Tiffin
- We cheated with the macaroons. With twenty-fours before the happiest day of our lives and with my history of disastrous macaroon making, Mr Marks and Mr Spencers came to the rescue.
- What was your wedding cake like?
