160 days to go
This June I am getting married. And for some reason, I decided it would be a great idea to bake my own wedding cake. All by myself. And my Mum is having kittens about it.
I know exactly what I want the cake to look like. It is inspired by this absolutely beautiful creation by Andrea Howard Cakes:
It’s going to have smaller flowers, and it may have something gold on the top (more on that later). And I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to do the gold tier… Even I will admit that gold leaf seems a little ambitious for the day before my wedding. It is going to be a four tiered cake – I have the 12, 10, 8, and 6 inch cake tins to prove it.
The tiers are going to all be different flavours. The bottom tier will be vanilla, the second from bottom will be some form of chocolate-centric creation, the second from top will be lemon, and the very top is going to be something a bit more experimental…
And that’s why today, I am bringing you my first attempt at the recipe for that top layer. This disastrous peach creation:
It doesn’t look that bad, I know. But it tastes HORRIBLE. I can’t even explain how vile this cake is. It takes like it is flavoured with peach body butter. It might as well have been. And it is now in the bin.
The reason for this fail was the use of peach extract to flavour both the sponge and the buttercream. Don’t do it kids. It tasted way too synthetic, and not at all the soft, peachy flavour I was hoping for. But then I had a realisation – peach really isn’t flavourful enough to work in a cake. Full stop. So I’m moving on.
All isn’t lost though. I had my first go at whipping up a batch of Swiss meringue buttercream, and it worked a treat. I don’t think I used enough sugar, as it tasted a bit too buttery for mine and Kate’s tastes. And with some vanilla extract instead of the hideous peach oil, I think it will work perfectly. I was expecting Swiss meringue buttercream to be stupidly hard to make, and I was a bit scared of using it. But in fact, it was amazingly easy to do! You definitely do need a stand mixer though, it makes the process a lot less labour intensive.
So no recipe today. No one should ever be subjected to the peach cake.
But, in the next instalment of The Wedding Cake Project, hopefully I will have something that is actually delicious to share.
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I feel that usually you would be able to beat this cake with your eyes closed and your hands tied behind your back. What even happened?
I’ve decided to make my wedding cake too! We are taking the cheat’s way out though and making cupcakes and then just a little cake for cutting 🙂
I’m really looking forward to following along with your wedding cake project! Good luck with the next attempt.
Also, how about making a peach butter to go in between the layers? Instead of making the whole cake peach flavoured? This one looks interesting (http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2011/09/peach-butter/) Just a thought 🙂 Happy baking!
Amy, I’m so glad there is someone else in the world who is making their own wedding cake! Maybe we are both mad? I do think that however it turns out, the feeling of knowing we made it all ourselves will be worth it 🙂
I’ve never even heard of fruit butter before – I feel like I need to give this a go! Thank you so much for pointing me in the right direction. Maybe a vanilla layer cake filled with some peach butter would be just the ticket. I might just give it a go and let you know how I get on.
And thanks for your worlds of encouragement 🙂