Making your own cakes

Have you ever cake decorated before? If not, I'd so some practice rounds of your cakes before hand so you know how it will go and maybe watch some tutorials! I've been decorating cakes since I was young- so I can answer any questions you might have.

First- make the cake itself ahead of time. We usually bake our a week or two in advance, let it cool, and then put it in the freezer until we're ready to decorate. It makes it so much easier when putting on crumb coats- it creates less crumbs since the cake will still be partially frozen when its time to decorate.

To get a really smooth final layer on your cakes, get your spatula hot by using hot water. It makes it so much more smooth. After you let it set for a little bit, you can also use a paper towel to smooth out some imperfections by lightly smoothing the towel over the cake.

If you're gonna do any colored frostings- get Wilton food coloring. They work way better than just regular food coloring. Also, if you want to make a color darker- use cocoa powder (add only tiny bits at a time). I will also warn you red is a really hard color to make- I usually try to avoid using red on my cakes- so I have not tried using Wilton's red food coloring to see how it works.

Get your tips you're going to be using to decorate and practice with them to get the hang of it.

Also, if you need a buttercream recipe, let me know!

Cakes are a huge project. I'm not saying it's not doable at all (we're doing our own cupcakes), you'll just have to go in prepared. Since you're just doing small cakes from the sounds of it, you should be alright!

You can ask me any questions you might have!

My MOH and I will be making our cake. We made my mom’s wedding cake a few years back and we make custom birthday cakes all the time. I have a Minnie Mouse cake in the works for a fourth birthday coming up. I agree with Keeya’s advice and would add to keep it simple. You can (and should) bake the cake ahead of time, but you can’t decorate too far in advance so try not to give yourself too much to do. There are lots of great YouTube tutorials for decorating cakes whether you wanted to use flowers, get fancy with icing, or use fondant ( I highly recommend making marshmallow fondant over buying fondant because it tastes much better). I’ve always had the best results using gel food coloring for colors because it doesn’t change the liquid ratio and is more highly concentrated so it yields a more vibrant color. Also keep in mind that buttercream should be kept refrigerated for safety. I have a buttercream recipe that does not use milk or cream (from a cottage food safety course required in CO to sell homemade goods), but if you use a traditional recipe the cakes should be kept refrigerated. You’ll need to think about where you’re going to store the decorated cakes, and you’ll want cake boards and boxes for moving, storing, and transporting. It’s definitely doable, but I strongly recommend practicing. I’m going to try something I’ve seen but never tried before for one of my tiers, so I plan to use my birthday next year as a trial run to work out the kinks. The last thing you want is to be stressing over a cake that isn’t working out right the day before your wedding!
One of my favorite YouTube channels of beginner tutorials is Sugar Geek Show: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCOWNzgrecZUTB9aWlxh5SYg
Good luck!! Let us know if you have any questions!

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My Wedding cake

That was so sweet of you to give her all of those tips!! I have a lady making my cake in TN!! I live in Arkansas now. She is coming to the wedding & doing it as a gift. She is going to bake the cake there & transport and decorate here. I am so excited because I would have definitely not had a wedding cake with flavors and fillings because I would have went with a cheaper option. Lol. But I can't wait to see it!!!

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That cake is gorgeous! I love the gold. I totally understand wanting to go with a cheaper option. I really wanted a tiered cake, but I was having a hard time spending the money on it when I could do it myself, but just don't have the time to. I'm having a local baker just do a small one-tier to cut into and our grooms cake. The rest will be our cupcakes, which I'm so excited about since we'll get to have all sorts of flavors that way!

I'm so glad that someone is able to do it as a gift for you! What flavors and fillings did you decide on?

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Thank you! That is one thing I really missed in not having a wedding with my first marriage. I wanted the cake, the dress, the whole shebang. LOL. I am not great at picking those things out but I love the wedding cake flavor & I am have cream cheese butter cream & lemon flavor with lemon curd filling. I could pick another flavor but I just didn't know! Maybe I can ask her to do red velvet...my wedding in July 6th though. And I cried when she told me she wanted to make it as our gift. She lives 6 hours away.

Thank you guys! We tried a vegan restaurant with our friends yesterday who took our orders with no problem! So we dont have to make it now but thank you for all of your advice!