It’s been a while since I’ve had to worry about making a wedding cake. I used to decorate cakes professionally. You know…. back when my kids were little and you wonder how the heck you did anything then!
I also used to teach classes for Wilton. I took a Wilton class at ZCMI back in the early 80’s and several more classes from that same teacher privately at her home. She taught me all about how to make and decorate cakes with fondant frosting….LONG before it was the ‘thing’ to do!
I spent hours making wedding cakes! Large wedding cakes! All the fondant was hand made, not in a box or a bucket like you can get now. (Yes….it’s true! You can make your own fondant!!) My teacher taught me how to ‘tuck’ ribbon in the fondant so it looked like it had been woven in and out of it.
Then she taught me how to do intricate lace work with the royal icing. It took hours. Literally. I would have to plan weeks ahead of the wedding day and start baking at least a week ahead of time. I didn’t make a ton of wedding cakes…. I made my fair share….. but the problem was, not many people wanted to pay the price I was charging back then. They loved the look…. they just didn’t want ot pay for my time. But if I didn’t charge enough…. it made my time worthless. So, consequently I wasn’t super busy doing wedding cakes, which is probably good since my kids were pretty little.
Anyway….. what I’m grateful for today is Linda Jean and her Frosted! blog. She is a friend of mine who has a passion for making gourmet cupcakes. Since cupcakes are a pretty big rage for weddings now…. I decided to make cupcakes for my sister’s wedding. Her daughter called me last week and asked if I would make a small wedding cake for them. They are just trying to keep the wedding small, but Jenny felt like it would be nice to have a cake.
So… I’m in the process of making a ‘small’ cake that will sit atop a cupcake tower. I’m also making the cupcakes. I figured… if I used to spend hours and hours making very large fondant covered cakes…. that I could easily make cupcakes and swirl some icing on them! And in a whole lot less time!
The key is, using my brilliant friend Linda Jean’s blog to get some recipes and tips off of. You really should check it out! If you are considering trying your hand at making gourmet cupcakes…. give her blog a look! http://www.thefrostedcupcakes.blogspot.com/
There is a lot of valuable information and recipes on there for wonderful delicious cupcakes and icing. Many different kinds. Lots of wonderful pictures and some great baking and frosting tips.
I’m so grateful to her for putting this together so that instead of just making plain cupcakes from a box mix with regular buttercream icing (which isn’t a bad thing…. I just didn’t want to do that!), I will have gourmet Vanilla Cupcakes with White Chocolate Buttercream icing. I’m excited to see it all come together. I’m sure that I will be making another post about how it all turned out…. so stay tuned!
Thanks, Linda Jean for sharing your knowledge…. for your passion for baking and making cupcakes! One day I’ll get to taste those yummy confections from your oven!!
I am Grateful! How are You?
I searched the internet for a picture of a fondant cake with ribbon tucked in like I used to do. Couldn’t find a thing! I’d have to dig through my photos and scan one in to show you. Hopefully I can do that sometime.
But here is a picture of the kind of lace work that I’m talking about. This is what really took hours to do. The ribbon tucking took time too…. but not like the lace work! This is NOT a cake I did…. but a sample of the kind of thing I used to do! Crazy!
I Am Grateful! How Are You? 