The Novel Bakery

Remember the part in Jane Eyre (spoiler) when Jane and Mr. Rochester get married?

“Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present.”

Kudos to Jane for keeping the wedding simple. I, however, am a sucker for wedding traditions. I just love them. Go figure. I wore a full-on ballgown and put my husband in tails for our wedding.

See? All about that tulle + lace.

So that moment when Jane marched into the kitchen and informed the housekeeper, “Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning” and nothing really happened…I would have started planning the party.

In the spirit of wedding traditions, when I discovered my friend wasn’t going to have a traditional cake at her reception, I (foolishly) volunteered to make one. Why was this so foolish?

1. I’ve never made a wedding cake before.
2. I’ve never frosted a cake before. I wish I was kidding about this one. Technically, I’ve frosted a cake. It’s been a long-standing goal, though, to properly frost a cake. A goal that I hadn’t gotten around to.

Benefits of this ridiculous mess?

1. I now “know” how to make a basic wedding cake.
2. I can now say that I’ve frosted a cake. (But, really, why frost when you can just drizzle on a chocolate ganache?)
3. The bride was happy. Always a plus to do something nice for a dear friend.

Mistake I made along the way? Oh, plenty. I did zilch research. I just winged it. Which meant a billion trips to various craft and grocery stores for all the things I hadn’t realized I would need. Like dowels. Who knew? Right before I started assembling, I had the thought of, What the hey! Why not throw together a fresh blueberry filling in between each layer? Guess I better go get some blueberries…

I also didn’t mentally make the connection that each tier was a layered cake, despite enjoying my fair share of wedding cakes. So I made one layer for each tier and thought, This looks ridiculous. Figured out I needed another layer. Benefits? The two layers were different flavors. We’ll chalk that up to clever planning and not last minute desperation.

I only wish I’d take photos during the process instead of just the finished product. But nobody needs a close up of that disaster, so here’s the rather rustic, rather rough final product.

Advice for anyone out there crazy enough to take on a wedding cake? Do yourself a favor and watch a YouTube tutorial or something before you begin.