The Multilayered World of Wedding Cake Design

How to Create a Professional-Looking Wedding Cake

Wedding cake design involves much more than an oven and some frosting. Successful wedding cake design includes elements of art, architecture, engineering and culinary expertise. The modern wedding cake comes in varying shapes, colors, textures, layers and flavors. Wedding cake decorating and design requires an ability to translate the essence of a couple's wedding into a beautiful and edible work of art for their special day.

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Elements of Wedding Cake Design

Creating a wedding cake involves the following elements:

Design

The very first step in wedding cake design is to determine the overall concept and plan for the cake. You will consult with the couple to learn their vision for their cake. The conversation should include questions like these: How many people do you want to serve? What is the theme and color scheme of the wedding? For decorations, do you want fresh cut flowers, elaborate marzipan roses or white chocolate lace? Do you want four-tiers covered in chic fondant or several separate cakes with fluffy cream cheese frosting?

Offer a selection of cake types and filling flavors, such as dark chocolate cake with espresso butter cream, white sponge cake with lemon curd mousse, or German chocolate cake with raspberry filling—or a mix of all three. It helps to have some photos of wedding cakes to help the couple identify what they want and to give them some ideas.

Baking

A wedding cake should taste as least as good as it looks. If you consider a wedding cake as a masterpiece of art and science, then baking is the scientific element. Preparation is critical to success. Based on the bride and groom's cake and frosting selection, you need to gather your ingredients and develop your baking plan. You'll need pots, pans, spatulas, a lot of space and plenty of time. Not to mention a good oven and a spacious refrigerator.

Visit cake specialty stores to stock up on necessities such as cardboard cake rounds to support each layer, a variety of cake pans and frosting tools, and cake strips to keep cakes level during the baking process.

Frosting

The frosting creates the visual texture of the cake, and you need to consider color, taste and texture when deciding the kind of frosting to use. The two most common types of frosting for a wedding cake are butter cream and fondant. Either or both can be used to create wedding cake masterpieces. When frosting a cake, you should be asking yourself: Is the texture smooth or raised? What type of texture should the cake have to tie it in with the theme? Is there any elaborate scripting to be done?

Ornamentation

Wedding cake decorating can be one of the most fun yet stressful parts of wedding cake design, since so much of the success of the cake relies on its visual display. The cake is meant to express the theme of the wedding. To capture the unique feeling of each wedding, cakes are decorated with anything from fresh flowers to beads to candy to plastic figurines. Let your creative spark fly when it comes to decorating, and be sure to leave yourself enough time for this critical step.

Preservation

Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, neither is a good wedding cake. It's a project you'll need to complete in stages. This means that part of your job is to supervise the freezing and thawing of the cake and its pieces in order to preserve the freshness of the end product.

Assembly

Here is where an understanding of engineering and physics can come in handy. Cakes are made of delicate and sometimes slippery ingredients, especially in the hot June weather favored by brides. Here's a tip: one of the best ways to keep cake layers upright and looking perfect is to embed three or four plastic straws through the layers—straws are inexpensive, lightweight and ideal for maintaining a cake's structure.

Transport

Transporting the wedding cake to the event can often be described as a nail-biting experience. Yet it's a crucial part of a wedding cake design business. The best way to do this is to drive slowly and reduce any friction or extraneous items in your vehicle that could fall on the cake. You should also plan on some assembly at the site. Don't forget to bring along some extra frosting and decorations for last-minute fixes.

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Designing Wedding Cakes as a Professional

If you are thinking about wedding cake decorating as a career, you should consider obtaining some formal culinary arts training. By attending a reputable baking and pastry arts program at an accredited culinary school, you will learn new techniques, make future employment contacts and expand your baking vocabulary. Most employers prefer to hire decorators who have both education and relevant experience.

Wedding cake designers can find work at established bakeries or restaurants, or choose to launch their own businesses. If you think you want to work for yourself, plan to take some classes in accounting, business and sales. To have a successful freelance career in wedding cake design, you need to have the business savvy and people skills to generate and maintain your business.