DIY Wedding Cakes

DIY Wedding Cakes

DIY Wedding Cakes: more and more people are making their own, or asking their mum/dad, or a friend, to do so. The cost: whereas parents may do this for free, it would be considerate to purchase, (or at least offer to purchase), the ingredients if being made by a friend or extended member of the family. Having obtained help there are different options that you may choose from.

DIY Wedding Cakes: Options

- make the cake in its entirety
- buy the base and do the icing and decorate yourself
- make the base and get someone else to decorate, or use professional cake decorator
- purchase a packet mix (ready to make) base, do the icing and decorate yourself
- go �Hollywood� only making the top two tiers, using Styrofoam for the rest covered in fondant icing. Behind the scenes have a long sheet cake to cut for your guests.

It is quite acceptable to break from the traditional tier wedding cakes that cost a fortune. Why not consider just having a sheet cake that may be made into any shape you want. If having a large number of guests join two or more sheet cakes together � under the icing no one will know!

DIY Wedding Cakes: Alternatives

Again, breaking away from tradition, you may wish to consider some of the following:

- offering individual cakes with different bases
- asking three people to make a single (one tier) cake of their choice the common denominator being the colour theme, cake base and if used ribbon
- just icing your cake and instead of decorating it, adorn it with a spray of fresh flowers in your wedding colours
- have a chocolate fondue instead
- dispense with a cake altogether

DIY Wedding Cakes: Recipe

Here is my favorite fruit cake recipe that will serve 100:

Ingredients (For A Round 30cm/12inch):
900 g/2 lb of currants
450 g/1 lb of raisins
450 g/1 lb of sultanas
450 g/1 lb of butter softened
450 g/1 lb of moist dark brown sugar
2 grated rind of lemons
100 g/4 oz shelled almonds
100 g/4 oz chopped citrus peel
175 g/6 oz washed, dried and chopped glace cherries
450 g/1 lb plain flower
7.5 ml/1� tsp ground mixed spice
8 beaten eggs
30 ml/2 tbsp of black treacle

DIY Wedding Cakes: Cooking Steps

- preheat oven to 150 degrees C (300 F, Gas mark 2)
- line and grease round tin
- cream butter and sugar with the lemon rind until very soft
- mix in almonds, citrus peel
- mix in eggs and treacle
- sift in flour and spice leaving a little to toss the cherries and fruit in
- fold in fruit and cherries
- pour mixture into the tin and even out the top, leaving a slight hollow in the middle
- cook for approximately 7 � 8 hours
- to test if cooked insert a clean skewer that when removed should come out clean
- (skewer will have sticky cake mixture on it if not cooked)
- leave cake to cool in tin
- remove from tin onto wire rack
- do not remove grease proof paper, but wrap additional around the cake and store in an air tight tin

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DIY Wedding Cakes