Champagne and Chocolate Cake

Have you ever wondered what a 25 pound cake looks like? Well here it is! Lacey got married today and wanted a Champagne and Chocolate colored cake to match her theme. We went through a few designs and came up with this one.

She chose the three flavors that I would likely choose if I were to order a wedding cake (I kid you not! These are the three flavors I would've ordered too!). The top tier is a Lemon Supreme Cake (lemon cake layered with lemon filling and buttercream), the middle tier is Mom's Apple Pie Cake (apple spice cake with apple slices baked into the cake layered with cheesecake filling and buttercream), and the bottom tier is Brownie Lovers Cake (chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache and a middle layer of actual brownies).

Now for the funny part... When Rosie and I went to deliver the cake (because I clearly couldn't carry this puppy!), we walked into the room and Lacey's aunt walked up and said, "Did you know that this is what she does for a living?" It turns out that Lacey is a pastry chef and she withheld that very important information from me so as to not stress me out. I totally felt like I was being punked! haha. Then everyone in the room swarmed around the cake before I even had a chance to move it to the main cake table. I learned two valuable lessons with this cake. 1. Always deliver the cake WAY earlier than expected so that people don't start taking pictures of you when you walk in with the cake and 2. Always ask if the bride is a pastry chef! :) In all honesty, Lacey was SO awesome to work with because she knew what she wanted but was also really flexible with the details. In retrospect, I remember saying, "wow, you totally read my mind!" when it came to cake construction, which makes so much sense now! I keep lucking out with my brides and haven't had to deal with a bridezilla yet (Thank goodness for that!).

The cake is covered in marshmallow fondant and if you're interested, I'm going to go into quite of bit of detail on the decorations so if you're not into it, read no further :) Here we go... The bow on the top is made out of marshmallow fondant. In order to get the bow to stay, I roll out the fondant into strips and then lay the strips over a rolling pin until they dry in that shape(be sure to connect the ends of the piece so that it almost looks like a look) . After they've all dried, I place each loop into the shape you see using a 6-inch baking pan that is lined with wax paper. I spray the whole bow with water (or vodka, because it dries faster) and again, let the bow dry in place. This takes a few days to complete but when it's done, it's totally worth it!

In order to get the edges of the cake to look so crisp, I roll out fondant to fit the sizes of the cake (so four of each size, 6x6x4 for the top, 8x8x4 for the middle, and 10x10x4 for the bottom). Then, I let those rectangles dry so that they are hardened. Meanwhile, I covered each tier of cake with marshmallow fondant as I would any other cake and then I simply adhere the hardened sides of fondant to the cake with buttercream or water and decorate.

Now for the color... Champagne is a very odd color to make from white fondant. In addition, the color swatch that Lacey gave me was a shimmery, shiny color. In order to match this color as best as I could, I first tinted the fondant a slight tan-pink color. Then, I brushed on an edible gold luster dust to each piece that's champagne colored. After applying the pieces to the cake, I sprayed the whole cake with edible pearl dust to give it an extra shine. In the process of applying pieces, moving the cakes, stacking the cakes, etc., I smudged several places and couldn't dare leave smudges on the cake. In order to fix that problem, I painted on a second layer of edible gold luster dust. Then, I wanted to make sure that the chocolate color stayed dark chocolate so that it contrasted with the champagne. In order to do that, I had to remove the luster dust that was sprayed onto the chocolate colored pieces of fondant using a paintbrush and water to remove the shimmer.

Although this all sounds like a lot of tedious work, I really LOVED making this cake. Hours flew by and in the end, I was pretty pleased with the result. Oh and check out my new cake stand! Woo-hoo! I'm WAY excited about that beauty. Lastly, I have to thank Lacey for being truly wonderful to work with and making my job fun and (relatively) stress-free. I appreciate all of your support in my work and faith in my ability. Congratulations!