Are you and your sweetheart planning a wedding on a budget? I have good news. Making your own wedding cake is both cheap and easy. You don’t need to be a professional cake designer to create a beautiful wedding cake on your own, nor do you have to spend hundreds of dollars. All you need are a few basic tools that you may already have at home and some simple ideas.
To make the cake itself, you don’t need a special recipe. All you need is cake mix in a box and frosting from a can. No one is ever going to know that you used Betty Crocker or Duncan Heinz cake mix to make your wedding cake. All they will notice is that the cake tastes great and is rich and moist. Don’t forget, you can make your wedding cake any flavor you like. It does not have to be a specific color or flavor. My wedding cake was chocolate with cream cheese frosting.
If your wedding will be small, you don’t have to make a huge wedding cake. Small birthday-sized cakes can be just as beautiful. If you would like a large cake, they are just as easy to make. Think about the shape that you would like your wedding cake to be. Do you want a plain round cake? Cake pans also come in heart shapes. How about a tiered cake? To make a tiered cake, think of the measurements you would like your cake to be and purchase the cake pans you will need from an online or local bakery shop. For my cake, I paid about $10 for a 20″ cake pan and $5 for a 10″ cake pan. If you do not have anything to put your cake on, check out your local dollar store. They usually sell large plastic platters that look like cut crystal.
You can make your wedding cake one to two days before your wedding. I made mine the night before my wedding once everything else was finished and decorated. If you have never made a cake before, you might want to make a practice cake before trying the final one. Be sure that the cake is not too moist or it may fall apart while you are moving it or crumble into your icing as you are spreading it.
Once your cake form is baked, let it cool for several hours and turn it upside down onto your platter. Cut several 3″ wide strips of paper and push them around underneath the edges of your cake. This will keep any icing from getting on to the platter while you are spreading it. Use a spatula and spread the icing around the cake one area at a time.
If you are adding a second tier to the cake, place it at the top before adding the icing. Otherwise, you may upset the icing on the finished part of the cake. When the cake is iced, remove the slips of paper from the edges. You are ready to decorate your cake any way you like. Keep extra icing on hand in case you make a small mistake that you need to fill in or cover up.
You can use a variety of decorations for your cake. Some couples like a plain cake with nothing at all on it. Others like flowers, seashells, rose petals, ribbons, or statuettes of the bridal couple. Our autumn wedding was easy. My grandmother gathered orange, yellow, and red maple leaves which we washed and lay on the cake itself. It was simple yet very elegant. Roses, English ivy, and other non-poisonous plants make wonderful cake decorations. Remember not to overdo it. Ribbon is a simple yet elegant decoration. Simply wrap a piece of ribbon around the base of the cake. It will stick to the icing.
Most cakes will store safely on the bottom shelf of your refrigerator overnight without being covered. If your cake is a large cake, you may not be able to cover it. It will be perfectly fine as long as you do not drop anything on it. If you are unable to fit your cake in the fridge, you can set up a tent over the cake on the counter or table made from a plastic trash bag or large Rubbermaid container.
Look around the internet at professionally made cakes. Several of them use techniques that you can easily do at home. The cake in the photo is iced with chocolate icing and chocolate Hershey bars are lined up around the outside, giving it a nice clean look. Use your imagination. You can make your own gorgeous wedding cake for $10 to $30 and save hundreds.
