Trial run

9/7/2012

I had a practise run at the top 2 tiers of the Victoria sponge stack last night.

I went for Mary Berry's classic Victoria sponge mix:

225g caster sugar
225g self Rasising Flour
225g cooking margerine
4 eggs ( beaten)
2tsp baking powder
Splash of vanilla (my addition to the recipe)

You basically throw it all in a bowl and whisk until just combined. Bake at 180C for 20-25 mins.

Initally i cooked the cakes full height and then split it into 3 sections to fill but i found the outside edge edge was far to dark so i had another go and baked each layer individually. I then levelled and stacked each layer with vanilla buttercream and raspberry jam.

I found a new little icing sugar dispenser gadget to easily dust your cakes etc with icing (see tomorrow's blog post for more details!) I am pleased with the result and when i add a third tier and stack it on the glass cake stand i think it will look great at the wedding!

4 Comments

sarah

18/7/2012 10:35:31 pm

oh this looks amazing! i am doing a similar cake for someone next year! (so lots of time to practice!)
Just a few questions.......you said that you baked each layer individually???? so the above cake has 6 individual cakes???? is that correct? if so did you level each layer before you sandwiched them together? and did you stack all the layers at the venue??
I hope mine will look as good as yours!!

Amy

22/7/2012 05:16:54 am

Hi Sarah

Thanks for your comments.

Yes i baked each layer individually. So for this 2 tier trial run i baked 6 very skinny individiual cakes then leveled layer before stacking up with the buttercream and jam.

The real wedding cake had 3 tiers and the bottom tier was 4 layers high, so overall i baked 10 skinny cakes! I then stacked up each tier indivdually on the morning of the wedding on thin cake boards which were 1 inch smaller than the actual diameter of each cake (so you wouldn't see the silver board poking out from underneath each tier) and dowled them so they had support. When i got to the venue i then stacked up the 3 cakes and added fruit and dusted with icing sugar and glitter. You can see the final results in my latest blog posts.

One tip you if you think baking lots of skinny cakes will take too much time - bake them in advance and freeze them. That way you can just get them out the night before the wedding and level and layer them up the next morning.

I hope that is helpful! Good luck next year :-)
Amy

I

sarah

14/1/2013 07:31:32 pm

Thanks for these tips! i am just about to start some practice cakes and get some tins!!!!.............the bride wants 3 tiers but i am unsure of how big each tiers should be(diameter, not layers of the tier)???? any advice?
How big were yours? and how did you scale up the victoria sponge recipe?
thanks
Sarah

Amy Fell

23/1/2013 01:06:40 am

Hi Sarah

This cake was complemented by a lot of cupcakes so the main wedding cake was a relatively small 4'',6'',8'' stack. If yours is the only cake offering I would go for a 6'',8'',10'' stack which is a very popular wedding cake size.

When it comes to scaling up the mixture it all depends what your recipe starts with. If you take the recipe for an 8'' cake you will need (roughly) 1/2 the amount of mixture for the 6'' and 1.5 times the mixture for the 10''

I would definitely recommend a practise run to see how it goes and remember you can always bake additional layers to add height if you want it to be more dramatic.

I hope that helps!
Amy

Trial run

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