A West Texas Wedding

The hubbin's uncle Phillip (aka PeeWee) just married Leona. They made a lovely couple and couldn't have looked any happier. Everyone was so excited when they got engaged. Mostly because it was a long time coming, but for me, wedding=cake! And Leona was more than happy to let me make it for her.

This was the largest cake I have done to date. And a cake that big comes with lots of logistical issues. But when you're driving over 10 hours to get to the wedding location and THEN bake the cake, it can be a nightmare! Here's how the whole thing started:

 That's a big pile of cake stuff. And we made a grocery store, a Michael's, and a Wal-Mart run for cake circles, eggs, and fondant while we were there.

But you're here for the cake, right? Here it is:

The design of the cake was unabashedly stolen from Maisie Fantaisie Cakes of London. Their wedding cakes are beautiful.  I'm a huge fan of the new styles of wedding cakes that are all colors and modern, sleek lines. So much better than the white buttercream with piping out the ying-yang. (I totally had one of these for my wedding, but it was a long time ago and everyone was doing it).

The cake is White Velvet from the Cake Bible. I LOVE this recipe. I may not ever make any other type of white cake ever again. I'm just sayin'. The layers are filled with Raspberry Jam and the cakes were covered in white chocolate ganache beneath the fondant. A cake this big needs lots of chocolate. I bought 8 bags of white chocolate chips, plus I had two boxes of bar chocolate.

Instead of a traditional cake topper (so dated now, aren't they?), Leona chose these little guys for the top of the cake. A word to the wise, ceramic birds are heavy and will squish your tiny top layer and make it bow on the sides.

See how there is a strawberry on the plate up there? Funny story. Someone requested 100 strawberries to dip in chocolate, fill with cream cheese frosting, and have plain at the reception. There was a little snafu in ordering the 100 strawberries. They got 100 POUNDS of strawberries instead!!! Check this out:

That's a fraction of the strawberries laid out on the kitchen table. They got sent home with people, they were sent to the local school on Monday morning for the teachers, they were donated to a women's shelter. So, so many strawberries.

The aftermath:

See the holes in the cake above? I finally found an excuse to use the SPS cake support system and I love it.

Of course the best part of the whole weekend was getting to be with so much familyCongratulations to Phillip and Leona!