The de-brief

Now i have just about recovered from the cake baking marathon of the past few weeks i thought i would de-brief you a little on how the final stages of baking went.

Firstly the dreaded white cupcake cases. Now i thought i had found the perfect white cakes in the Culpitt ones but when it came to the lighter, sponge mix the cases collapsed in on themselved giving me very ugly edges - this would not do for the delicate vintage cupcakes. I tried recasing them but i couldn't get the cases to take the shape of the cake so it looked very baggy and i couldn't get an airtight seal with the icing - so the cake would have gone stale.

I then tried Waitrose cases (which you would think should be the best!) but alas a very similar situation to the Culpitt catastrophe.
 
So i came full circle back to Dr Oaker which you may recall were the perfect size for my tins and therefore gave me a lovely frilled edge but went very brown during baking. I did a little research online and a suggestion was to bake in 2 cases then remove the outside case. I tried this and the inside case was definietly a lot less darker. To further improve this i added a third case during the bake which vastly improved the colour. It did not stay completely white but it gave me a nice, clean pale colour which did not look discoloured. I was happy!

Next the Victoria sponge stack. Leanne changed her mind on the fruit at the last minute which i think was very wise.  It did not change the baking but it gave a strong colour to contrast against the sponge and filling.

Despite doweling each cake on an individual board i was very nervous about the stability of the cake. The sponges had to be extremely fresh which meant they were not dense. Also i needed a decent amount of buttercream between each layer to achieve the right look.  This combination of airy, light cake and lashings of buttercream and jam  does not bode well for tiered structures where the bottom is under some pressure. It did seem to lean a little (i don't think the slightly sloping barn floor helped!) but some quick readjustment meant it stayed upright until it was cut at 11.30pm!

The fruit was a nightmare. Everytime i put a piece on another one rolled off. In hindsight i should have taken some buttercream along to the venue to use as glue around each tier (although how i would have stopped this from spoiling the look of the cake i don't know. We live and learn!!!

Holographic glitter mixed into the icing sugar made the cake sparkle and shine. (I was sparkling and shining too as i was covered in glitter during the wedding!) Overall a sucess but a little stressfull having to bake so close to the wire and assemble on site.

---