24 FUNFETTI cake mixes
96 eggs, separated
12 cups of oil
36 cups of water*
28 lbs of white buttercream icing
10 lbs of white fondant
3 spools of yellow ribbon
10 dowel rods
1 Ark made of gopher wood
1 Rain plan
*doesnt include water that falls from the sky
Started by making practice cake last sunday night. A 6" round cake with white fondant and yellow polka dots. I was really afraid of the fondant since I'd never used it before, but read lots and asked lots of q's at the cake decorating store. Things went well so I started baking. A total of 10 cakes (6 for the main cake and 4 for the extra cakes). I was off on Tues and Wed so I figured if I got all my baking done by Wed I could decorate on Fri nite and Sat morning.
The wedding was supposed to be outside. As Saturday got closer and closer of course they talked more and more about it on tv that it would be bad weather on the weekend. Sometimes they talk about it so much on tv that you just tune it out. Finally Friday I found out there WAS a plan B. The wedding had been moved inside. Whew.
I got a surprise snow day (and by that I mean "hey we arent busy on Thursday so can I pleasepleasepleaseplease be off?")on Thursday so I had an extra day to get the baking done. GB had a band concert that night so I knew I wouldnt be able to decorate till Friday night. I'd dreamed (read: had nightmares) about cake by this point, and caused others to dream about it, too. I got off work an hour early on Friday and came straight home and started on it. Immediately I realized I had made a few mistakes, and I'll chalk them up to inexperience.
Firstly when I do a cake I usually bake it a few days ahead and freeze it. Then I decorate it still frozen (notice I say "it" because usually there is just ONE, not TEN!). This locks in all the moisture and it doesnt dry out. Well I didnt have anywhere to put 10 cakes, 6 of which were the size of Tennessee. So I just wrapped them in plastic and set them on the dining room table. They did stay moist. So much so that when I went to assemble the cakes they broke. Because #1 they werent frozen and #2 they were HUGE.
Secondly I think I got a little over confident about the fondant. Rolling it out like play-dough is not that hard when you are covering a 6" cake. But rolling out a sheet the size of Texas to cover a 16" cake, and then getting it ON the cake is a whole other chinese fire drill. I planned a big cake because I was told 300 people.
I iced the 2 extra cakes (after I got them assembled) pretty easily. One had a huge crack in the top, but I wasnt sweating it because the extra cakes were for cutting and not for viewing by the general public. Then we went to eat mexican food. I was doing absolutely everything I could do to avoid that fondant. This includes eating cheese dip, entertaining 2 11yearold girls, and sweating large torpedo size bullets!
Thats a picture of my practice cake. Isn't it cute?
Stay tuned for part 2
I shudder to think what happened.
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