Homemade Wedding Cake

My husband and I chose to take a pretty nontraditional route for our wedding.  To most people this wasn’t a huge surprise, but our decisions elicited some interesting responses.  Namely, “Wow, that’s SO you guys”  or “How unique!” or “That’s very different” and my personal favorite “They’re having one of those new-age weddings”.

A few of my favorite parts of the wedding events and planning process that prompted these responses:

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And the decision that elicited the most surprise and alternative advice (and the reason for this post)– Jeff and I made our own wedding cake!  It was quite an adventure.  Here’s how it all went down…

We wanted to make our own cake for a few reasons:

1.  Neither of us are big cake-eaters, so it wasn’t a major part of our wedding.  Thus, we didn’t want to spend an outrageous amount on it.  And, if you have ever been involved with wedding planning, you know that prices are automatically increased just because it is a wedding.

2.  We had several guests (including the bride) who have food restrictions and we wanted to make sure they could enjoy the cake.  (Ironically, I didn’t even eat cake at our wedding!)

3.  We really like knowing what’s in our food.  Since we made it ourselves, we were able to decide how much sugar, butter, etc. we wanted to use.

4.  We like a good challenge and thought we could create a tastier-than-average wedding cake.  (Which I believe we did).

Though we chose not to rehearse for the ceremony, there was no doubt we needed to rehearse the cake-baking.   I think we baked a cake 2 or 3 times leading up to our wedding.  We made our friends and family taste it.  I don’t think they were too upset about that.  :) In the end, we made two gluten free chocolate cakes.  The recipe that inspired us (Harvest Spoon’s Gluten-Free, Dairy Free Wedding Cake recipe) is also dairy free.  However, we opted for cream cheese icing, which is obviously not dairy-free (I think weddings are a good time to splurge!).  One cake had a cinnamon icing and the other one had a lemon icing.  Otherwise, We mostly followed the recipe.  I wish I could give you the exact changes and substitutions that we made, but Jeff and I cook and bake by taste, so unfortunately I don’t have all of those changes for you.  However, I’m confident that it would taste pretty delicious if you make it according to the recipe.  Most of the changes we made were due to the lack of exact ingredients we had in our kitchen.  A few pictures from the process:

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Tips:

1.  This cake freezes VERY well.  This was important to us because the cake had to travel from Virginia to Ohio.  We made the layers one week before the wedding and then froze them until a couple days before the wedding when we iced them.  We iced and stacked them while the layers were still frozen.  This made the process much easier.  After icing, we re-froze the cakes and then slowly defrosted them in the refrigerator just one day ahead of time.  This worked out well for us considering we got married outside on a hot July day.

2.   If you are using this cake for a special occasion, decoration is key.  As you can tell from the pictures, the cake looked much more presentable and aesthetically pleasing with some wildflowers carefully placed by a couple of my lovely bridesmaids!

3.  Get creative with the icing.  The icing the recipe calls for is dairy-free and just OK.  We decided to spice it up and were very pleased with the cinnamon and lemon versions.

Disclaimer:  The health coach in me cannot post about this sugar-laden treat without mentioning that if you are struggling with sugar addictions, this is not the cake for you!

Overall, it was a big success and our guests raved about the cake!  It was a fun experience to share with my husband and one we will always remember.  And, probably try to recreate every July 11th!  Happy baking to you!

A few more photos from the wedding:

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