Anniversary Cake

As I mentioned, my mom and I volunteered to make my a cake for our cousin's 40th anniversary. We decided on an impressive, 4-tiered confection. You can see the baking process, as well as a generalized timeline for making a large scale cake here. In addition to that guide for making a wedding cake, I'd like to share some thoughts specific to making this cake:

The cake that inspired me

• I wanted to do something that evokes traditional wedding cake design but, since it's an anniversary cake, was a bit more modern and fun. About a year ago I went to a student demo at the FCI where Chef Ron Ben-Israel made a black wedding cake with white dots. 

• I decided to take inspiration from the dotty patterns but I didn't want a black cake. I almost did all white but that seemed a bit too wedding-y so I opted for three white layers with one pale pink layer, second from the bottom, and chocolate brown dots.

• I planned on using 3 flowers, one on top and two staggered on the different tiers (as you can see from the sketch.) I made 2 spare flowers and two bud size flowers (in cases of breakage during transport). Not one petal was damaged. After I put the three flowers on, I decided to see if it might look nice if I added a few more. I ended up with two large blooms and one smaller, bud-like bloom on top.

• In order to keep the lines of dots straight and the scallops even, I used ribbon and parchment (folded and cut paper snowflake/paper chain style) wrapped around the cake and lined up the dots with the edges. This is a great technique and you can use it to make some pretty complex patterns if you trim the parchment properly.

• Transporting the cake: this is never easy. I find the best thing is when the cakes fit snugly in their carriers. In this case I put the largest layer (on its cake drum) in a cake caddy. Because the cake was heavy and the cake drum was covered in fondant, the cake didn't slide around on it; because the cake dummy happened to fit in the carrier right to the lip, it didn't slide either. The smaller cakes were hotel wrapped to quarter sheet pans, so they weren't moving around, it was just a matter of figuring out where to put the quarter sheet pans so I could transport them in a car. I settled on inverting a bin I use for storing bulk chocolate...it happened that the two quarter sheet pans fit perfectly inside the lid and the base of the bin just slotted on over the cakes. (Everything else ended up in a second bin--this time I had to move my bulk flour--with the flowers packed carefully in a smaller plastic bin inside the big bin.)
• Assembling the cake at the location is hard, but I find it harder to transport the heavy, fragile, assembled cake on my lap in the back of a sub-compact rental car. I always bring basic tools (cake iron, offset spatula, any cutters/templates I used for the decorations, etc) and some spare fondant (in case of tears or lost decorations or, as happened in this case, things--the table, I think--are a bit uneven and you need some fondant under one side of the top layer so it doesn't look crooked.) The fondant also comes in handy for attaching flowers (use a mound under the flowers so the wire doesn't hook into the soft cake and tear right out.) I always think it's good to be prepared for anything on delivery--the last thing you want is all your hard work ruined because decorations fell off and you can't stick them back on because you didn't bring edible glue.

A piece of cake!

• Finally, you've spent weeks planning and executing a cake. Now you cut it open. On one hand, it's gut wrenching in a way, all that work...gone. On the other hand, it's nerve wracking because you've worked so hard to make this thing beautiful but it people don't think it tastes good (and it's not like you can test it before hand like eating one cookie of a batch, the best you can do is eat crumbs from the domes of the cake and left over buttercream) all that work was really for nothing. On the third hand, it's really rewarding. If it turns out to be good (and let's face it, if you've tasted all the elements, you know it's good) the happy people asking for seconds (and thirds) makes all the time and effort worth it. In this case, when we cut open the cake it revealed four layers of moist, sweet, white cake with a dense crumb but a surprising lightness. The cake was coated with plain buttercream and a thin layer of fondant. Sandwiched between the cake slices were two layers of chocolate buttercream and one layer of raspberry buttercream (in a happy coincidence--not really a coincidence more a fortuitous alignment--the filling matched the pink layer and chocolate brown decorations.) It really was delicious--requests for seconds, thirds, and slices to take home made this pretty clear and made me pretty happy!

Okay, I think that (coupled with the how to post and my discussion of the dahlias) pretty much sums it up. In fact I think I've probably told you more than you really wanted to know! Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll just leave you with one more photo of the cake: