So now it's time for the wedding cake post I've been talking about for some time now. The wedding of a friend's friend was yesterday and I had the honor of making the cakes. There were about 110 guests so I was to make five twenty person cakes plus a small cake for allergic, mainly lactose intolerant people. There was one main cake with the bride and groom figurines on them and the rest of the cakes were decorated within the same theme but they were slightly simpler.

The theme for the cakes was dragonfly hunters since that's what the couple were doing when they met. However in this case the groom's net was aimed to catch something else than the dragonflies, and that was the bride. They wished for the decorations to be something like a stream or a river with dragonflies and flowers. I knew running figurines would be quite hard to make, so I suggested they would be running knee deep in the water. I also came up with the stream flowing from one cake to another, even though the cakes would not be physically connected, and down the side of the cake.

 

The glazing should be dark chocolate and the sides made of white chocolate shavings. The cake itself should be something along the lines of a Sacher cake. Already earlier I had made the small trial cake with rhubarb jam instead of apricot, and the future husband and wife actually preferred my version. Also they asked if I could include a filling that would make the cake seem not so heavy and rich, so I added my favourite filling, the one from Red velvet cake which also suited the theme because of its white colour. This is also the reason why I decided to call this sort of cake Black velvet cake, even though, I know, a cake with that name must exist already, but mine will just have the same name then. And, of course, I'm sure my cake is better anyway ;) Atleast I was told that the cakes were deliscious.

 

I don't have many pictures of the phases of making these cakes since the making was already big enough job, let alone taking and figuring out which ones of the about thousand pictures that I would be taking would get chosen to the blog.

 

Black velvet cake base (for 20 people)

- 400 g margarine or butter

- 400 g dark chocolate

- 8 eggs

- 4 dl sugar

- 8 tbsp dark cocoa powder

- 3 dl wheat flour

- 2 tsp baking powder

This recipe is originally from here, just multiplied. Melt the butter and chocolate together in a heat resistent container above some boiling water. Do not let any water in the mixture. Whip the eggs and sugar fluffy and add the chocolate-margarine mixture in them. Mix together the dry ingredients, sieve them into the batter and fold everything until smooth. Bake in 175 degrees celcius for about 1 h 20 mins or until the cake is completely cooked. This you can try by strinking a stick (or often in my case a thin knitting needle) in the middle of the cake and if it comes out clean, your cake is done. If you have time and patience, it could be good to bake cakes this large in two parts, so you would first make a 4 egg base and then another 4 egg base. Those would take about 45 mins to bake each.

 

Let the cake base cool and cut it in three layers. Moisten the base with some coffee and smear on some rhubarb jam. Make some Red velvet cake cream cheese filling and put a good layer of that on top of the jam. (This time I used just 3 dl of cream in the filling for each cake, not 3,5 - 4 dl.) Do the same for the next layer and put the "lid" on top of the cake. Moisten also that one with coffee from the top and smear a thin layer of rhubarb jam on top of the cake, also sides if you wish. Let the cake rest in the fridge for a while.

 

Chocolate ganache:

- 150 g dark chocolate

- 1 dl cooking cream

- 1 - 2 tsp margarine

Melt the chocolate and margarine slowly with the cream in a heat resistent container over hot water until the mixture is smooth. Be careful not to get it too hot. Let cool until the ganache is good consistency for spreading, spread it on top of the cake and let it cool in the fridge. Chocolate ganache will stay sticky, it won't get hard, so watch out you won't stick anything on the even surface after it's spread. Ganache is also shinier than normal chocolate glazing would be.

 

Spread some more of the white cream cheese filling around the edges of the cake and finish the sides with some white chocolate shavings. Try different kinds of knives for making the shavings. I usually use a big flat kitchen knife, but this time I noticed a normal kids eating knife was very good for larger shavings with a little reggedy edge. Move the knife laterally forward quite quick on the chilled block of chocolate and also press it slighly down while you do that. Lift and press the shavings on the sides with the help of a spoon. You can reuse the shavings that fall.

 

After making the cakes this far there was only decorating to do. I dyed some marzipan light blue and made the river. I had already made some flowers, leaves, rocks, dragonflies and of course the figurines earlier so now it was just about placement. I used some shimmering powder on the river and some of the other decorations for a little liveliness.

 

And here's a myriad of pictures... I couldn't have possibly taken enough pictures to show all the details, but I hope these give atleast some direction.

 

(This picture has been stitched from almost 20 images, hence the weird looking plates)

(The wings of the dragonflies are made of gelatine leaves)

(Two of the dragonflies in the main cake I constructed around a stick and suspended them in the air with some metal wire)

 

The cake for allergics was especially strictly made containing nothing that could have nuts in it and it was completely lactose free. The glazing is made with no cream but instead with margarine and the chocolate shavings are made from dark chocolate.

 

 

From the leftovers of the filling, rhubarb jam and the cake bases I made a small, fast (and ugly) cake. I pressed the base in a ring mold, whipped 2,5 dl more cream in with the cream cheese filling so that there would be a bit more of it and it wouldn't be so sweet, added some gelatine and cooled in the fridge for 2 hours or so. The I spread on some rhubarb jam and sprinkled on frozen blueberries. I also had some white chocolate in a zipper bag so I used that too. I took the cake on the huge picnic we had and it went quite fast. :)

 

Hääkakut - Sudenkorento - Sacher - Raparperi - Mascarpone - Tuorejuusto - Suklaa - Valkosuklaa - Hääparikoriste