i said i wouldn't make another one...

but i did... two weeks before their civil ceremony, some friends asked if i could make them a wedding cake for their celebratory gathering afterwards. since having experienced my first attempt at making a wedding cake for some friends last summer the couple actually felt i'd be competent enough to make them a cake as well (what were they thinking?!!) i know i've already said several times after making the first one that i never make another wedding cake again (the hours of prepping, pre-baking, assembling and decorating) but lucky for them the gathering was intimate and so the process would be manageable. 

the bride asked for chocolate and vanilla layers and as you can tell from the picture above left that i went with alternating chocolate and vanilla cake layers, just for a nice visual effect once the cake was cut into (pics were taken but that's on another camera). the cake was frosted with some good old-fashioned vanilla buttercream (about a good 4lbs of butter). the bride also requested something simple and mentioned that her favorite colors were blue and green so when i saw some lovely chartreuse organic roses online, i knew these would be perfect and luck should have it i found a thin blue satin ribbon in my collection. the ribbon was draped around the lower tier and bordered the top tier. i wanted to keep the cake clean and simple... so i used a minimal amount of roses as decoration. 

i can definitely say making a wedding cake the second time around was a little easier, less layers to bake and frosting the cake (which i find is the hardest part) came a lot smoother since i had some previous practice. the cake recipes were taken from "wedding cakes you can make" by dede wilson and came out really nice. the cake had pronounced flavors - the chocolate was really intense but was balanced by the vanilla cake layer and the buttercream frosting added a nice overall decadence that wedding cakes should always have.

congrats to the happy newlyweds!