Dan,

Re the delphiniums—sounds like a bad idea to have them on the cake. Hope you are able to talk the bride out of it or come up with something safer. Hang in there—we’re all rooting for you!

Barbara A.

Patrincia - 03 April 2008 09:57 PM

Are you loosening the cake by scraping the sides of the pans before unmolding?  If so, is it possible you are not holding your knife firmly against the sides of the pan?

I was particularly careful this go-round… I used an angle spatula instead of a knife, and I was very careful to keep it on the edge.  I don’t think I scraped the cake.

I do think part of my problem is the bake-even strips.  I’ve been wetting the cake strips thoroughly with cool water, then “squeegee-ing” the water out of them between my thumb and fingers.  It seems as though it’s worse when I’m using smaller pans and the excess strip is doubled over some portion of the outside of the pan.  I bake at 325F with convection on.  For now, I’ve abandoned using them—which isn’t really a problem since I use a cake leveler almost always anyway.

(6 pages… this is one long thread

Progress report:

2 batches of mousseline buttercream—made with 33% more sugar than Rose’s “standard” recipe—done, and the second 12in layer done.  3 or 4 batches of buttercream to go.

Last serious bit of work to be done is the 12in by 18in sheet cake.  I’m either borrowing a friend’s 5qt KitchenAid stand mixer for that, or I’m going to make it in 2 batches:  Mix 4 RFs (Rose Factors) worth of batter, spread it in the pan, put it in the refrigerator while I’m making another 4 RF’s of batter.  The second batch of batter will be divided in half and one portion will be mixed with the chocolate.

This is going to be a quick post.  I’m exhausted (and still slightly hung over—I think it’s only fitting since I started this project inebriated that I should have ended it that way, too).  My cousin’s wedding was last night.  My Aunt (mother of the bride), who works in the St. John’s Episcopal Church office, got me access to the parish hall kitchen to work on the wedding cake.  I’ve got a series of pictures of mixing, baking, making buttercream, decorating, etc. more or less from start to finish, but I haven’t had time to sort through them yet and I wanted to put up a picture of the finished product.

Thanks to everyone for their advice and support through this process… Thanks to Rose for an excellent reference to guide me.  Who’d have thunk I’d have a wedding cake under my belt just 14 months after picking up a piping bag for the first time? I’m pleased with the way it came out, and looking forward to a bit of a hiatus from all things cake-related.

I’ll post more specifics later.  If anyone needs/wants a recipe for a marble version of Rose’s cakes, I’ve got a spreadsheet with 6in, 8in, 9in, 12in rounds, plus a 12x18in sheet version.

I’m taking the dog out for a walk, then I’m collapsing into a coma

Congratulations, the cake looks spectacular!  I can’t wait to hear all the stats, including how long the cake took to make from start to finish .  Well done!!!!

Super job!  It looks beautiful.  I always laugh when I think of Rose’s comments in TCB about after all the incredible work, mess, all-nighters and clean-up of the incredible mess, how innocent and beautiful the finished cake looks after all is said and done.  No one would ever imagine how much it took to get it to look that way!

I would love to get those charts/recipes for the marble from you when you come up for air.  Thanks!

Finally starting to get caught up.  To anyone that’s asked for the spreadsheets, I’ll be getting to that this weekend.  I’d send them as-is, but I’m afraid they don’t reflect any last-minute “winging it” I did.

Here’s the start-to-finish storyboard, with some creative liberties taken for brevity:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/axon_obriend/sets/72157604726425325/

Great job Dan - I just checked out all your photos on flickr… I love the ones with you protecting the cake in the back of the car!

I loved the photos!  Is that Mousseline Buttercream?

I’m impressed, only 14 months since you started decorating! There’s hope for the rest of us punters yet. Loved the set of photos on Flickr. Congrats.

Cathy in SoCal - 25 April 2008 12:16 PM

I loved the photos!  Is that Mousseline Buttercream?

It’s mousseline buttercream, made 33% extra-sweet for the folks that decided the “straight” version wasn’t to their liking.

Patrincia - 25 April 2008 11:25 AM

Great job Dan - I just checked out all your photos on flickr… I love the ones with you protecting the cake in the back of the car!

I’m sort of partial to the one of me making that exhausted/relieved/what-am-i-going-to-do-next face.  My cousin snapped it without warning and really seemed to capture my mood that that moment.