Wedding Dress Wedding Cake

This is the one of the most ambitious cakes I have made so far. I made it to display at the Squires Kitchen Annual exhibition.

It is completely over the top and I love the design which reflects the design of a wedding dress.

I started a the top and worked down with this cake.

I made the tiara first. I cut triangles from rolled out fondant and then draped them over the sides of an up turned foil case to harden. I then covered a 4″ shallow polystyrene dummy with white fondant.

Once the triangles and covered tier were hard I attached the triangles around the side of the small dummy tier. Once all the triangles were all in place they formed a crown/tiara shape.

Next I attached lots of tiny blossoms to the tiara. I did this using a flower shaped plunger tool. This is a tool which cuts out a shape from rolled fondant and has a plunger integrated which then pushes the shape out of the cutter.

This is a really handy tool because whatever has been cut out can be applied directly to the cake with the addition of a little water brushed on. I wanted pearlescent flowers so I brushed the rolled fondant with edible tints before cutting out the flowers. As the plunger pushes the flower it forces it to curl creating a rounded shape.

Once the tiara was finished I put it to one side.

I covered the top tier with white fondant brushed with edible gold tint. I created an embroidery effect on top of this by first transferring my design onto the cake. I did this free hand using a scribing tool.

Once the design was on the cake I made little holes along the lines. I then did a dot to dot with piped white royal icing to create a stitching effect. I put this tier to the side.

The next tier down was a shallow pink tier with pale pink fondant. I used an indenting tool to create a diamond pattern around the side of the cake which I then ran a serrated roller tool over to give the effect of stitching. I added tiny gold flowers to the intersections of the diamonds.

I attached the top tier to this one with royal icing and put them to one side.

The next tier down was the corset part of the cake. I wanted to create a look of fabric with sheer strips and matt strips. I covered this deep tier with ivory fondant. I measured the circumference of the cake and divided it into 5 sections where the laces of the corset would be.

I painted vertical strips of edible gold paint which would form the centre of the laces. I then cut out thin strips of white fondant to run down each side of the gold strip. I cut holes all the way down these strips.

I cut strips of ivory fondant with scallop shapes on one side and embossed these strips to look like ribbons. I attached these ribbons alongside the holed strips.

To create the sheer strips I used low tack tape to form a vertical strip which I then painted with pearl white lustre dust mixed with lemon essence. Lemon essence or rejuevenator spirit can be added to lustre dust to make a liquid. Once the tape was removed a pearlescent strip with a clean, straight edge was left.

I also created some wider sheer panels with ribbons down each side and pink bows in between. The bows were made with white fondant which, once dry was painted with pink lustre dust luquid. I put this tier to one side.

The next tier down was a shallow claret coloured tier with gold and white ribbons running down it. I dusted the claret fondant with amethyst lustre dust. Fondant can be dusted with lustre dust as well as being painted on. This can be a messy process because it is impossible to prevent coloured dust from landing on other parts of the cake. Therefore it is necessary to mask other parts of the cake or dust the whole tier before assembling it.

This dust created a satin fabric effect. I then attached white and gold ribbons down the side of the cake. I attached the corset to the shallow claret tier.

Next I piped the laces onto the corset piping from hole to hole in a criss cross pattern. I piped a bow at the base of each lace up part which was draped over the shallow tier.

The final tier was the skirt part of the cake. I began by dusting rolled fondant with pink pearlescent lustre dust. I cut strips from this coloured fondant and used a tool to frill and thin one edge of the strips.

In order to get equal sections for the frills I measured the circumference of the tier and made a template from grease proof paper with equal curved sections. Once pinned in place around the cake I scribed curved lines along the top of the template.

I attached the tope edge of each frill along the scribed line. I then placed small pieces of foam underneath the frills to create some shape.

I repeated this process for another layer of tiers, this time placing foam between the two layers of frills.

The next step was to create draped fabric over the frills. I used strips of rolled fondant which I pleated at either end and attached above each frill. I then placed hearts where the sections met and painted them with edible gold paint.

I stuck pearlescent tiny flowers where the frills met to neaten the join.

At this point I assembled the tiers. I then attached a lace ribbon around the top of the base tier.

To finish off the bottom tier I attached tiny blossoms in gold, pink, pearl and amethyst. I attached a gold ribbon around the cake board.

Once the entire cake was assembled I needed to add the veil. I used a large piece of fine netting for this. I gathered one end of the netting and pinned it in place on the top tier against the tiara. I did the same on the next two tiers below.

I secured a row of gold and amethyst beads over the pleats of the netting on each tier. I then let the veil drape over the cake.

This cake took around 40 hours to complete and was a labour of love.

It gets mixed reveiws and some people find it too OTT but that is how I wanted it to be.

This cake could also be tailored to match a wedding dress and could be as subtle or flamboyant as desired.