When my cousin Jerry and his (then) fiance Mary asked if I would make their wedding cake, I was kind of in deep shock. I love them and was elated to have the opportunity to be part of their wedding in a special way. Still, the thought that kept whirling around my brain was, “Why on Earth would you let someone who’s never made a wedding cake before, make your wedding cake?”

I tried to manage their expectations without making it sound like I didn’t want the responsibility because I really did. Still, I didn’t want to create a disappointing wedding cake, even now the thought is unbearable. Some how Jerry, Mary, and Lon seemed so confident that it wouldn’t be a problem for me that it gave me the confidence to do it.

Luckily, gum paste flowers last forever once made if kept in a dry, cool place. Mostly, I just used Wilton tools (and some ingredients) and their instructions to learn how to make the flowers. Sophia, my brother’s girlfriend and amazing artist and crafter, improved on the rose techniques and made flowers with me for months. We just made and made until we got good at it. I could not have done this without her!!

For the cake, we used the Red Velvet recipe that we posted back in 2009. I figured out that it made 4.75 cups of batter; then through some trial and error, figured out how much batter each 6″, 8″, 10″, 12″, and 14″ cake pan needed. (Each of the five tiers has three layers). Testing various baking times, helped determine this guide:

size pan batter needed baking time baking temp
 6″  1 cup  18 min  350 F
 8″  1 3/4 cups  20 min  350 F
 10″  3 cups  25 min  350 F
 12″  3 3/4 cups  25 min  350 F
 14″  5 cups  40 min  325 F

Very special thanks to Gail Dosik of One Tough Cookie (the grand master of cookie artworks) for fielding so many of my questions! Without her, I would not have realized until too late that an 18″ cake pan would not fit in my oven.

These beautiful photos were taken by my cousin, Steven Wu.

posted by jessica at 09:19 PM Filed under American, Desserts, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.