Thursday, July 8, 2010

The Wedding Cake

I've told so many people about the wedding cake Taylor made for Ian and Ashleigh's wedding, and everyone wants to see a picture. Here it is!
I have to say, I've never been more impressed with one of Taylor's cakes. And that's saying a lot. This was an enormous undertaking, and I now completely understand why cakes of this magnitude cost $600-$1000. And not only did it look beautiful, but it was so delicious, too (not always the case with wedding cakes, you know?). The bottom and top layers were a homemade yellow cake with raspberry filling and vanilla bean buttercream. YUM. The middle two layers were homemade chocolate cake with a ganache filling and orange chocolate buttercream. Double YUM.
Just to give you an idea of the size of this thing, here Taylor is shaping one of the cakes for the bottom tier. This cake is 16 inches in diameter. Seriously, the pan looks like a sled! Each layer (except the top) was made of three cakes, each cut in half. In other words, each tier was 6 layers. The top was just two cakes (otherwise it was going to look like Abe Lincoln's hat), so just 4 layers. For a grand total of 22 layers!
What I wish I had more pictures of:
1. The process--Taylor's cake blueprints, the dozens and dozens of eggs, the jillion pounds of butter, Taylor carving and shaping, and frosting, and molding. Unbelievable.
2. Me freaking out when Taylor put the cake in our trunk to drive to the wedding.
3. Getting to a road closure and me insisting that Taylor ask the cops to move the barricade so we could get through. (As that was a no-go, we moved the cake from our trunk to Taylor's lap. he sat in Tanner's van with it on his lap as Melissa drove him up the steepest hill imaginable.)
4. Taylor and Tanner in their handsome black suits, carrying the 55 pounder in to the wedding venue in amazing Lithia Park.
5. The long line of wedding guests waiting to sink their teeth into a slice of cake.

It was a stressful process. I developed in ulcer just watching. Taylor, as always, remained totally calm. He's amazing.

5 comments:

Christina said...

It looks beautiful - I'm so impressed!

Holly Llewellyn said...

um...wow is all i can manage to say! W-O-W...Taylor you are quite the talented guy!

Aaron and Meg said...

I wish I could have been Taylor's sous chef for the whole operation. Seriously amazing! I got some cake baking basics from Taylor when we both lived in Provo. I would love a second course.

--Aaron

Anonymous said...

I am SO impressed! I can barely get out a decent batch of cupcakes. Amazing job! It looks beautiful!

Nicole Douglas said...

Just catching up on your blog. Beautiful! I helped my cousin make a cake like this for my sister's wedding two years ago and it is nerve racking and awesome at the same time!

Wish we lived closer cause Taylor reminds me so much of Jason and it'd be fun for them to talk "kitchen shop"--Jason has gotten into cooking so much now and often I feel like he's the better homemaker of the two of us! Thanks for sharing.