How to make your own wedding cake (or ten) with sugarpaste

I’m a photographer and not a cook, so this is not a recipe but a photo-journal of the Day Before the Wedding of my friend Maris and her fiancé! I had the honor this Midsummer to take their wedding photos, but before church I was involved in a lot of pre-wedding activities and I had a blast (more tomorrow). This post is about How to make your own wedding cake (or ten) looking just like a professional wedding cake! I was fascinated as I’ve never visited a cake bakery before! I was in the middle of the action, even helping!

I was rolling up my sleeves and got to be involved in the sugarpaste* part of the baking. I did a lot of the kneading and rolling out the white sugar dough that would cover the cakes. By the end of the day I slept like a baby…

So what to do? My friend would say plan, plan, plan!

Plan ahead, practice at home and reserve a lot of time off from other wedding business the day before the wedding to make your cakes! Bring a couple of crafty girlfriends and close the kitchen door for a couple of hours!

We cooked the chocolate and raspberry filling (Panna Cotta!) on the stove and then chilled in the fridge over night. The are creamy, colorful and look so yummy, don’t they?

Once they were spread out the cake had to go into the fridge again not to melt. The logistics of making ten wedding cakes in a small kitchen was as fascinating as the magic we did whit the white sugar “clay” later on!

The white sugarpaste material was specially ordered from a bakery firm. It is produced in Italy and doesn’t taste anything special. You kneed it in your hands until its soft enough to start rolling out on the transparent film.

You use rubber gloves to not get any dust on the sugarpaste and when it’s thin enough (approved by the bride) we rolled it into plastic film (foil) and lifted it to the cake!

Voilá!

As the theme was black and white dots we also created several white cakes with black dots on. But a few of the cakes was designated to red. The bride colored some of the sugarpaste red and cut out hearts and white garlands as decorations.

She even had a special food-pen to write on the cakes with. I was impressed! Yummy cakes!

More photos tomorrow if you want to come back?! :-)

And some sugarlinks served up with whipped cream;
♥ A Cook’s “Play Dough” – fun article on sugarpaste
♥ Vad är sockerpasta (sugarpaste) – information in Swedish
♥ Smitten Kitchen bakes a wedding cake
♥ Martha Stewart Wedding – lots of beautiful images

And some extra love for those of us not getting married in the near future:
♥ Write a love letter – send it out!
♥ Sweet heart crochet pattern – cute garland!
♥ Knit a heart pin – free pdf pattern!

Weddings make me happy because there is so much happiness and love all around. Enough for everyone.

* Sugarpaste Facts

Did you know… The sugarpaste we used were store bought and produced in Italy, but you can find online recipes if you do a google search. It is super shiny white as it has no almond in it, like marzipan has, and that is why it’s great for wedding cakes! Sugarcraft is a creative art form, where sugar is used as a medium to produce masterpieces mainly for decorating cakes for special occasions. It is huge with cake designers and you can find whole books about it! Sugarcraft originates from Britain where they even have a sugarpaste guild! Modeling in marzipan and such has its origins in the wonderful sugar sculptures which were created for court banquets in Tudor England. The British spread the art which is now enthusiastically practiced all over the world, even in little Sweden. Who knew? I sure didn’t before looking this up. Wouldn’t you want to try it? Maybe you rather just eat it? I did that too and it was delicious!