I had a call from a lovely friend a while ago. On the phone Hayley sounded a little shy, a little plaintive as she said “Do you still make cakes for money?”.
Of course I make cakes for money. And for friends! It was Hayley’s brother’s wedding, and she had promised to make his wedding cake – only selling her house and staying with her parents, not to mention caring for her little daughter (and being in charge of the running sheet for the entire wedding) made her wonder if she had bitten off slightly more than she wanted to chew.
Me to the rescue. The mandate was a 3 tiered wedding cake for 180 guests, and after some pondering of Cakeophilia.com, the Happy Couple selected “something lemony”. As one of my favourite cakes is lemon Victoria sponge with lemon curd and vanilla buttercream, this seemed like a sensible request. But something happened along the way that made me tweak the usual combo – with stunning results, not only in terms of taste, but also because of the flowers which had been chosen to top the wedding cake.
You see I have lemon myrtle oil in my flavouring arsenal, and this seemed like a wonderful departure from the more usual lemon zest. So I made lemon myrtle cakes, soaked with lemon, lemon myrtle and lemon verbena syrup, and layered with lemon myrtle scented lemon curd and lemon myrtle buttercream. By golly is it delicious, this cake. The perfume and flavour of lemon verbena is at once lemony and floral, making the cake very special indeed. The wedding cake is frosted with a lemon myrtle scented royal icing – which is easy to work with to create a rough-iced look, and perfectly white! Royal icing sets hard if you leave it to dry out – but if it’s just done a day before serving the cake, it will have a dry exterior but still be slightly moist and marshmallowy inside.
And imagine my delight when I found out that my lemon myrtle wedding cake had been decorated with Australian flowers (admittedly King Proteas are not Australian natives, but they certainly grow well here) and eucalyptus leaves!
So if you’ve ever wondered what goes into making a wedding cake – here it is! I should have taken a picture of the piles of ingredients, but I forgot – but here is the list for shopping and the crazy calculations needed to figure out how much of everything you need for each cake.
It’s a lot. I mean. A LOT. 32 eggs, for starters. I won’t give you the full list of ingredients, it would be a seriously boring read, and using my Victoria sponge cake recipe, it’s easy enough to do the calculations yourself. I have, however done all the calculations for filling and frosting the cakes for you (lots of high school geometry in there)!
A note about timing – it takes time over three or four days to complete the cake from the start of baking to the time where the wedding cake is served. I would allow the following timing if you have never done anything like this before (The process can conceivably be sped up if you are experienced, or can be spread out over the space of a week). Because I have a “proper job” I like to make the cakes on the weekend before they are required and do the decorating during the week.
The timing I use is set out below:
Saturday or Sunday: bake the cakes, make the syrup and the lemon curd during the baking time (allow 6 hours).
Monday: trim and slice the cold cakes (allow 1 hour).
Tuesday: (you could do this with Monday’s step) make the buttercream, layer the cakes, chill and wrap (allow 2.5 hours).
Thursday or Friday: make the royal icing, insert dowels in the cakes for support, frost the cakes (allow 2 hours).
Saturday or Sunday: serve the cakes (allow 0.5 hour to stack the tiers and fix any blemishes: the “bulletproofness” of the cakes will depend on how dry the royal icing is).
Lemon Myrtle Wedding Cake
makes a three tier cake of 20, 25 and 30 cm diameter.
Lemon Myrtle Victoria Sponge cakes
2 x 3 egg Victoria sponge cakes, each flavoured with 1/4 tsp lemon myrtle oil, baked in 20cm tins.
2 x 5 egg Victoria sponge cakes, each flavoured with 1/2 tsp lemon myrtle oil, baked in 25cm tins.
2 x 8 egg Victoria sponge cakes, each flavoured with 3/4 tsp lemon myrtle oil, baked in 30cm tins.
Triple Lemon Syrup
ingredients
100g caster sugar
50mL water
50mL lemon juice
pared zest of two lemons
5-6 dried or fresh lemon verbena leaves
1/2 tsp lemon myrtle oil
mixing
Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Boil one minute, cool and strain.
While the cakes are still hot, pierce all over with a skewer and brush generously with the syrup. Let cool.
When the cakes are cold, wrap with cling wrap and refrigerate overnight.
Lemon myrtle curd
makes 750g – this can be made well in advance.
ingredients
200g butter
300g sugar
3 large lemons (yielding 3/4 cup juice in total), juice and zest
3 large (70g) eggs
1/2 tsp lemon myrtle oil
mixing
Combine the butter and sugar in a large saucepan and cook over a low heat until the butter has melted and the sugar has begun to dissolve. Do not allow the mixture to boil. Stir in the lemon juice, lemon zest, and lemon myrtle oil. Let the mixture cool to just below blood heat. Beat the eggs in a small bowl until well combined. Beat the eggs into the butter mixture. Return the saucepan to a low to medium heat, and cook, stirring all the time, never letting the mixture boil, until the mixture thickens and resembles liquid honey. Remove from the heat and pour into a sealable container until needed.
When it is time to assemble the cakes, divide the curd into three portions as follows:
165g for the 20cm cake
250g for the 25cm cake
335g for the 30cm cake
Lemon myrtle buttercream
makes 2.8 kg – make this on the day that you layer the cakes.
ingredients
1.4 kg unsalted, cultured butter
1.4 kg icing sugar
1 1/2 tsp lemon myrtle oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup vodka
mixing
Beat the butter until creamy. Beat in the icing sugar and salt and beat until very pale and fluffy. Beat in the vodka and beat another 2 minutes.
Divide the buttercream into portions as follows:
625g for the 20cm cake
925g for the 25cm cake
1250g for the 30cm cake
Layering the wedding cakes
You will need three 5mm thick cake boards: one each of 20, 25, and 30 cm.
Trim the tops of the cakes so they are perfectly flat and the cakes are all of precisely the same height (about 3.5-4cm). Split each cake into two perfectly even layers. You can use a “cake leveller” for trimming and splitting the layers: it is much more precise than using a knife!
The following instructions are common to all the cakes. The only difference is the portions of lemon curd and lemon myrtle buttercream used. I have given the portions above, just match the portions to the cake size.
Take the 20 cm cakes and invert one on top of the other so that the tops face each other at the centre of the layers. The bottoms of the cakes will form the bottom and top layer. You want to do this because the bottoms are perfectly flat. Take the 20cm cake board and smear lightly with buttercream. Transfer the bottom layer, browned side down, onto the board. Brush the cake with a little syrup, then spread a fifth of the apportioned lemon myrtle buttercream in an even layer over the surface of the cake. Follow this with a third of the apportioned lemon curd. Top with another layer of cake and repeat until all the cake and curd is used.
At this point, take a ruler and carefully measure all around the top of the cake to make sure the cake is a uniform height at every point. This is essential! Press down any part of the cake which is too high (or if you need to, unlayer the cake and do some internal scaffolding with more buttercream! If you have been careful to make all the layers even you shouldn’t need to do this). Record the height of the cake – all of the cakes need to be the same height as the first one.
Spread one fifth of the buttercream on top of the cake and the final fifth on the sides of the cake, smoothing until very flat. Check the height of the cake again and adjust the buttercream if necessary. Chill the cake until the buttercream is set, then wrap again in cling film.
Frosting the wedding cakes (and preparing for assembly!)
You will need 8 wooden cake dowels (available from cake decorating shops or kitchen shops).
About 3 hours before you are going to frost the cakes, take them out of the fridge and keep in a cool place. This stops the cakes from developing a layer of moisture which will cause the royal icing not to stick.
At this point, mark the cakes so that the dowels can be inserted. The dowels stop the lower cakes from being crushed under the weight of the upper cakes. You want to insert four dowels into each the 25cm and 30cm cakes. The dowels should be about 7cm in from the edge of the cake, and distributed evenly (like four points of the compass) around the surface of the cake. So long as you get them roughly in this orientation, it doesn’t matter too much if the dowels are not inserted with geometric exactitude! Once you have marked the positions of the dowels, insert each dowel straight down into the cake (using the pointed end of the dowel). Try to make the insertion completely perpendicular to the base of the cake so that the dowel can carry the weight of the upper cake most efficiently (if it is at an angle, the cake itself will bear some of the load of the upper cake (you don’t want that – the cake might squash, which is what you are trying to prevent!). When the dowel is completely inserted, use a pencil and mark the top of the dowel exactly where it protrudes from the surface of the cake. Remove the dowel and cut along this marking so that the dowel is exactly the same height as the cake. Re- insert the dowel, and check the fit – they must be precise, otherwise the upper cakes will sit wonky! Even a millimetre off-balance makes a difference to the eye, and can make the difference between a perfect wedding cake and one that looks amateurish.
Lemon myrtle royal icing
makes about 1.7 kg icing
ingredients
9 tbsp meringue powder, such as Wilton
1350g icing sugar
250mL water
1.5 tsp lemon myrtle oil
mixing
Combine all ingredients in a very large bowl and mix on medium speed using a stand mixer for 7-10 minutes. The mixture should be readily spreadable but still form stiff peaks. Add an extra 20 mL water if the icing is too stiff.
Divide the royal icing into three portions as follows:
350g for the 20cm cake
475g for the 25cm cake
675g for the 30cm cake
Cover each portion by placing a film of cling wrap directly on the surface of the icing. This prevents it from drying out. Reserve the remaining icing for fixing up any blemishes caused when stacking the cakes.
Enjoy!xxx
