Marriage blessing

Our Godchildren’s marriage blessing was last Sunday. It was lovely. I’ll post more pictures of the actual marriage blessing itself when people e-mail me pictures.

I constructed another cake for the occasion. This time I made it pink and white since this was the day after Valentine’s Day. I made it at my mother-in-law’s house since she wanted to watch. It was surprising how much “stuff” I had to pack just for the cake. I didn’t take too many pictures of it “in progress” since I was getting nervous about time. I eventually finished it about 11:30 Saturday night. (There was a large time out that evening for vespers and dinner.) I’m not entirely satisfied, but if you sort of squint and don’t look too closely, it’s not too bad. Well, here are the pictures:

I was more concerned about the decorating than the baking. Here you can see the tiers constructed out of frozen Sara Lee pound cake. It’s a lot easier to cut them horizontally into separate layers if you don’t thaw them completely. You can’t really see it but each tier is on a cardboard square cut to size. I put apricot jam and buttercream icing between the layers. Then I frosted each layer separately with buttercream icing (thinly so the fondant wouldn’t slide around or squish out).

I tinted half of the fondant pink and rolled out a circle for each tier. Then I draped it over the tier and smoothed it down. That white object in the lower right of the picture is a tool for smoothing the fondant. After smoothing and trimming, the tiers were stacked and I stopped to go to vespers. It’s a lot easier to do the corners than you might think. I just did the top, then the sides, not getting too close to the corners, then started carefully working the fondant down each corner. Unbelievably, it really doesn’t make folds. Have a look:

The children were on the floor watching Bugs Bunny while I was working. For some reason it was necessary to set up the laptop next to the counter thus necessitating a large detour around each time I needed to reach the other side. Pickles looks enthralled.

Here’s the cake after I finished with it for the night. I rolled out strips of white fondant and cut scallops into them. Then I used different sized round decorating tips to cut out the little holes to make it look like eyelet lace. Once all of the lace was applied (using a little bit of water brushed on to the fondant surface), I piped on the extra bits with white decorator’s icing using a tiny tip.

The cake might have looked OK, but I was rather a mess. I can’t believe I’m actually posting this picture of myself. My husband took this flattering shot:

The next afternoon, after a two-hour trip from one church (ours) to another (for the marriage blessing), I finished the cake with baby’s breath and miniature roses. The bride’s bouquet was roses as well, but for some reason I didn’t take a picture of it. It should be visible in pictures of the wedding.