Wedding cake with fresh flowers

This weekend I did a two day course making an open stack wedding cake with fresh flowers at Cakes4Fun.

The first day was spent cutting and covering the cakes with Jen, a lovely instructor whose advice is always in my head when I’m doing cakes. On the second day we were joined by Patty, a florist with an infectious enthusiasm for both flowers and cake. I felt that I learned a huge amount from her about taping and wiring flowers, about how to use them on a cake, which flowers wilt or cause others to wilt, which are toxic and which are edible. I felt the tingle of a possible new hobby coming on and I swear I felt my credit card wince.

Jen showed us how to dowel and stack the cakes leaving a scary two inches of air in between the bottom two layers, something I have never done before. The space was filled with red and cherry brandy roses, salal leaves, rosehips, Chinese lanterns and plants I’d never even heard of like amaranthus and kangaroo paw (hilariously misheard as kangaroo poo). We also included some bird eye chillies on the wedding cake, which my mum suggested would make for a “hot night”. Ridiculous. Who would cook a curry on their wedding night?

The reds and oranges of the flowers and berries looked stunning and everyone was pleased with their cakes.

 I wish my rear view was this good

This was a really lovely course – I learned a lot about flowers, gained confidence in using them on a cake and am very keen to learn more. Plus I now have 100 wedding cake portions to eat on my own like a jilted bride.

Huge thanks to Petra and Dylan for having me to stay and credit to Dylan for his persistence in trying all week to eat the circus cake. Thanks also to the taxi driver who picked me up from Petra’s and asked if she was my daughter. She is TWO MONTHS younger than me for god’s sake. Perhaps it’s time to get some rest.