What goes into a wedding cake?

I  know what some of you are probably thinking... It's just cake, why does it cost so much? 

Well... let us show you what goes into making a simple wedding cake. This is what we did for a recent wedding. It was a 4 tier buttercream frosted cake for 150 people with a bow and ribbon decoration.  

Step 1: Mixing and Baking... Total Time 2 hours 25 minutes. 

She had 2 flavors, Chocolate Bourbon with cookies and cream filling and Chocolate Chip. 1 hour 20 minutes to mix and bake the Chocolate Bourbon and then 1 hour 5 minutes to mix and bake the 2nd flavor, Chocolate Chip. 

24 hours to chill and firm. 

Step 2: Cutting, filling and crumb coating... Total time 45 minutes

First we cut the bourbons in half and then fill with frosting and cookie pieces. Each layer is set up with cake, filling cake, middle layer of frosting, cake filling and top layer of frosting. Then we put a thin layer of frosting over the entire cake and chill again till firm. We do this twice for the chocolate bourbon layers and then we do the chip layers, but they don't get cut in half, they're too chunky to cut. 

  

Step 3: Final Frosting...Total time 1 hour
Next we smooth on the final coat to each layer. At this time we also add support straws for stacking. Back in the fridge to chill. 

Step 4: Decorating... Total time 1 hour 30 minutes. 

When the cake is firmly chilled we add the chocolate fondant ribbon to each layer and make the chocolate bows. Then each cake layer is boxed and set aside till delivery. 

Step 5: Delivery and set up... Total Time... 1 hour 

Delivery time will vary depending on where the event is located. This cake went to the Providence Biltmore hotel which is close by. Still we have to load the car, unload the car, take the cake up to the ballroom, unpack the cake and very carefully stack the cake layers on top of each other. Then we finish by putting the bows on. 

Final Product: 

Total time for this cake 6 hours and 40 minutes over the course of 3 days. 

This was a fairly simple cake, there wasn't any intricate piping, no fondant covering, we didn't have to make many pieces to add to the cake, but it still took about 7 hours... 

So, now our lesson for today is done... You now know what goes into making a wedding cake! 

Enjoy!