Some of you might remember (if you don’t, go ahead and read Part 1 and Part 2—we’ll wait for you) that on Saturday afternoon, when the first batch of frosting went down the drain and I had my tantrum, I mentioned that the wedding was 27 hours away. You might have then figured, correctly, that the ceremony was to take place at 5:30 P.M. In which case, you are probably going to wonder, “Why are they up at the crack of dawn to frost the cake if they had all day to do it?” I can only answer that making a good wedding cake is a complicated and time-consuming task. I knew that, researched it, prepared for it, and still the sheer number of details and the amount of time they took surprised me.

Saturday night, we put the cakes in the fridge with the crumb coat of frosting on, so they could chill while we slept. About four hours later, Troy (who is my hero, for his help with this cake and a thousand other reasons) got up to take the buttercream out of the fridge so it could soften. He went back to bed after resetting the alarm, and an hour later we both got up and headed to the kitchen. We frosted all four of the tiers (three chocolate, one white) till they were buttercreamily perfect and carefully put all the cakes back in the fridge so the frosting could chill and firm up before the next step. While that was going on, since it was Sunday morning, we showered and dressed and went to church with Annalie and my parents. After worship, we skipped Bible study and went back home so we could get the cakes ready for transport.

In the cookbook I used as a wedding-cake reference, the author suggests completely assembling a stacked cake before very carefully loading it into the padded cargo bay of a van or station wagon, putting a sign in the window that reads, “Caution! Wedding cake on board!” putting on your emergency flashers and then driving to the reception site at about 10mph, avoiding freeways and busy intersections. I mention this here because it gave us a good laugh, and I wanted to share the mirth. Since we knew we had access to the reception hall most of the day, including an industrial fridge, it was simpler for us to just take the frosted tiers and supplies to the park and assemble it there.

You might have noticed in the photos that all the cakes were placed onto cardboard rounds after they came out of the oven. The cardboard under each tier was a little bit wider than the cake itself, which was about to come in handy. And I know you remember the pizza boxes, because I keep mentioning them. Those pizza boxes made getting the frosted tiers to the park a snap. Because the cardboard was wider than the cake, we just set each tier in its own box. If the cakes did slide about a bit during the drive, the cardboard would hit the side of the box and prevent the cake from moving further. Also, apparently, cardboard doesn’t slide around much on more cardboard. Once Troy got everything arranged in the back of the van, those suckers were secure. So we drove (slowly, carefully) the five minutes to the park and arrived with all four of the tiers intact.

When we arrived, Erin, Rocco, and many of their friends and family were busily working in the kitchen, outside setting the tables, or hanging decorations from the trees. There weren’t many people paid to help with this wedding. Almost everything was done by Erin or Rocco themselves, or someone who loves them: arranging flowers for bouquets and centerpieces, appetizers, decorations, place settings, music, making and serving the cake, and even marrying the bride and groom (Rocco’s dad is a retired municipal judge). It made the whole wedding much more memorable and special to me and Troy, because we were directly responsible for part of the celebration. Imagine how much more memorable it made the whole thing for Erin & Rocco. It made me wonder why more people don’t do weddings that way.

[If you aren't interested in the details of assembly, feel free to skip ahead to the pretty pictures.] Making a stacked wedding cake involves a bit of engineering. First, I smeared some frosting on the cake platter to prevent the cake from sliding around, and centered the bottom tier on it. Next, Troy said, “Here, give me those,” and took the dowels and knife from me, because he is awesome and he knew this was the part of the whole operation I was least confident about. So I mostly stood around and watched while he stuck a dowel in the cake and marked it with a pen a quarter-inch above the top of the cake, and then took the dowel out and used a knife to cut the dowel at the mark. He used that as a template to cut four more lengths of dowel, which we placed around the cake in a circle midway between the center and the edge. We did the same thing for the middle tier. Then, we carefully picked up the middle tier, cardboard and all, and set it on top of the dowels in the bottom tier. Next, the top tier was placed on the dowels in the middle tier. A little tweaking to make sure they were centered, and then Troy used the knife to sharpen one end of a long dowel, which we inserted through the top tier and pushed all the way through the layers of cake and cardboard to the bottom, and left it sticking up out of the top. It would help stabilize the cake when we needed to move it back to the fridge.

Now, a wedding cake with cardboard sticking out from under each tier isn’t very pretty. So I added enough frosting around the base of each tier to cover the cardboard. Then I did some touch-ups to the rest of the frosting, adding a bit here, smoothing it out there, till it looked right. I wasn’t going for a perfectly smooth surface; I wanted the cake to look like it was meant to be eaten. Also, I don’t have the skillz or the patience to get that faux fondant look. That done, we cleaned up, put the cake in the fridge to chill, and went home to take a much-deserved nap. Whew.

It almost feels anticlimactic to write any more. After all, most of our work was done. Over the course of three days, we had mixed, baked, iced, transported, and assembled into a sturdy stack enough cake to feed over a hundred people. But we had a little bit left to do before the wedding. We had to make the cakes pretty.

After we napped and showered, we got ourselves and Annalie dressed in our party clothes, and headed to the park with my parents, who were also invited to the wedding. When we got there, we moved the cake from the fridge to the cake table and removed the long dowel. Then Troy, secure in the knowledge that he had done more than anyone asked and therefore had my undying thanks, wandered off with Annalie to inspect the playground.

I gathered the flowers that had been set aside to use as decoration on the cake and cake table, and begged some folks who were hanging around, helping with last-minute details (Thank you Kelly, Kelly, Courtney, and anyone else I’m forgetting!) to come give me advice and feedback. So together we arranged the cake topper and the gerbera daisies on the two cakes. Erin had also asked me to decorate the cake tables, and I don’t have a clear memory of how that was accomplished, so I am pretty sure I had nothing to do with how lovely they looked in the end. Thank you, whomever decorated the cake tables! They looked great!

You’ve probably had the experience of going to a wedding, oohing and ahhing over a truly gorgeous cake, and then eating your first bite and being totally underwhelmed. I know I have. I knew that would not happen at Erin & Rocco’s wedding, and they knew it too. I’m not bragging; I simply would not have offered to make a wedding cake if I weren’t confident of my ability to make a delicious cake. Erin has eaten my baking many times over the years, and she trusted I could do it too. Even so, the best part of the whole experience, by far, was when Erin and Rocco cut the cake, fed each other a bite, and Erin turned around and exclaimed, “Oh my God, Bethany, this cake is SO good!” That one moment of knowing I had made someone I love happy on her wedding day made every moment of stress totally worth it.

Thanks for letting me play such a big part in your wedding day, Erin & Rocco! I appreciate your faith in me more than I can tell you. When you need me to make a cake for the next big party, just let me know.

To see more photos, go to Erin & Rocco’s wedding cake - a photoset on Flickr