A Display Cake, Wedding Cakes, and Favors for M&J's Wedding!

It has been a while since the last blog post, and I surely didn't do enough of a good job keeping up with the blog updates :(. Holiday season is crazily busy for most of us, holiday shopping, holiday baking, family members visiting, etc.

Good thing for me, that me and my family has never been big on Christmas gifts, it was never a tradition for us to exchange gifts, but I did try to at least bake some Christmas goodies to give for friends. Last year, it was extremely last minute, I baked some stuff the night before the last day of work to distribute to some coworkers. Then, I promised myself to plan better next year (which is this year) and bake lots of different goodies, I've already had a list of what I want to make and believe me, there are tons and they're all sounds so good! Now that "next year" is finally here, here I am being in the same situation as last year, if not worse. It's only days before Christmas and here I am typing a small part of this draft post on Sunday at work in between firmware builds, so sad I know.

Anyways, back to what this post is all about, I must have mentioned about working on a wedding project a few times now and this is it!
It doesn't feel like too long ago I made this bridal shower cake, and now they're husband and wife!

When M asked me if I would be willing to make her wedding cake (and favor later on), I immediately said yes. Not because it's a challenge (this would be my second time), but how can I say no when it's your good friend who's getting married? This is the least thing I can do to show how happy and excited I am about their marriage.

The word "Wedding" never comes easy. Everything that has that word in it has to be big and special, and unfortunately that also means stress and a lot of work for many people too. As usual, I prepared a giant spreadsheet containing very detail budgeting information, which online store I should ordered from, every single item I need to buy from 10 different stores, details as for how many servings, decorating details, recipe conversion for each size of pan I used, timetable, you name it, heck it has 6 huge different tabs. It took me about a month getting everything together and even during the last week, I'm still updating the spreadsheet every single day.

I asked M from the beginning if she's ok with having display cake and having the real cake in the back, not for budget reason though because having it this way is more expensive, but it serves a couple of advantages:
- I don't have to worry about transporting four-tiered cake to the reception
- No need to worry about refrigeration or the cake being unrefrigerated for hours
- You can be creative about the decor as it is more sturdy (although in my case, it's just a simple decor)
- The last reason which is the most important one for me is that you can be creative with the actual wedding cake and you don't have to be limited to buttercream cake!

The cons are that it's more expensive more labor-intensive, which is something I always try to avoid whenever I make cake, but this time, it's special. I decided to make two flavors on the actual wedding cake, chocolate-hazelnut (a.k.a Ferrero Rocher cake) for the chocolate lovers and white chocolate raspberry cake for the fruit lover. It might sound like a disaster waiting to happen when you're trying to serve individual cake to 200 people, and you can never please anyone, but I can't help it.

The display cake is very simple-decorated, I'm very fortunate that M is a very laid-back person, she's not picky, she's basically ok with everything as long as it won't add more work on my plate. She picked a design based on a magazine we saw and I think it was pretty easy to execute, I just have to match the color and add some flowers to match the theme of the wedding. She didn't request anything for the cake and favors (except for the budget of course), but she left all the flavors, and every single detail up to me, which makes it easier on my end. The hardest part was to constraint every single expense so that it would fall under the budget (or at least close). I wouldn't have so many problems if it's just a buttercream cake but since I wanted a nice (and complicated) cake, most of the ingredients are special-orderred, so it was quite a challenge.

The three goodies for the wedding

The last week of the wedding was insane, intense baking for 7 days, day and night, constant dish-washing, it was hard to imagine that I actually went through all those. Making multiple desserts for large scale in a home kitchen (a messy one at that too) is quite a difficult task. My mom and brother were coming in that week too from Indonesia, busy work week as usual, it was crazy! I think my biggest problem was not having enough refrigeration space for all those cakes and desserts! I really wished I had at least two very large fridge and freezer that can fit multiple half-sheet pans!

The favor: Macaron with rose buttercream and lychee filling

The favor was purple macaron that I brushed silver streak on with rose buttercream filling and lychee center. I finally got some help to fill the macarons and put them in each favor box, thanks A and S! I bought a new silpat mat for this (I used to have only one) but for some reason, every batch of macarons that I baked them on, it always failed, always, and it drove me mad especially when it happened three batches in a row in the middle of the night, and you still have more than 100 macarons to make. All you wanted to do was cry, I almost gave up for quite a number of time to be honest.

The assembly line

Fortunately, everything went very well, everything was done on time. There were some minor glitches such as the catering didn't have a dessert plate, all they had was China plates for the entree, I freaked out. They finally came with a backup plan and although we had to settle with less, I was happy to have a plate for my dessert at least :).

I learned quite a number of things in this experience, one of them is that making cake for large portion is very different than making a small one. I converted each ingredients needed but the result was different for some reason. I was so scared that the taste would get impacted and that it wouldn't taste as good as I wanted to be, but my worries didn't come true. Yes, it tasted different than the small version I usually make and I hoped that it would be better, but as soon as I got a lot of people going to the kitchen asking for seconds, I could start breathing peacefully :). I even heard that some people are going around the tables after the reception to find more unopened favor (the macaron), yay! Mission accomplished!

We had a thunderstorm and a VERY COLD weather that day. We even had a blackout for about an hour in the middle of reception! Yeah, it was unprepared and pretty hectic at first, but I think it made the whole wedding memorable and quite casual as candles were lit everywhere, making it very romantic. The songs that some of the guests were singing had to be improvised to acapella too and they sounded great! Not to mention that M looked absolutely beautiful, she looked gorgeous! Jefry has got to be one of the luckiest men.

The beautiful bride and groom

So cheers to you both and I wish you both a happy and wonderful journey together. As Linda (the maid of honor and also the sister) said "may this day be the day where you love each other the least" --> not sure where she got the quote from but I love her speech! :). CONGRATULATIONS to you both!!

I don't have too many pictures of this as I didn't snap a thing during the reception and the cake-in-the-making, but I'm glad that at least I have something to show you in this post :). Won't show too many of the wedding pictures since they haven't been published yet :)

Happy to get two pieces :)

White and Blue Wedding Cake

Remember this? Yes, they are officially married now! They got married in Indonesia back in December, but they were also having a little celebration with their friends here back in the States last week.

I was so excited when Kathy asked me if I would and could make the cake for her mini wedding celebration. The party was for about 50 people so I didn't have to worry about making a huge cake to feed them all. And the most important thing is, I didn't have to worry as well about what cake I want to make as Kathy was dead-set of having her favorite Indonesian cheese layer cake with pandan and vanilla sponge cake. This took a huge weight off my shoulder as deciding on the cake flavor is the most difficult thing to do when making a cake, at least for me :). So, all I needed to worry was the cake design.

She mentioned that her theme would be blue and silver and she wanted the base to be off-white color. White and blue is easy but incorporating silver? hmm... I have to think extra hard and even tried to find inspiration everywhere. I looked at probable hundreds of pictures for inspiration. I was originally planning to use diamonds or crystal to put on the cake but I canceled that idea last minute (umm... the night before) since the crystal will not be edible and I'm afraid someone might accidentally eat it. Besides, I was afraid that the cake will look too "bling-y" (if this is a word).

I started making the sponge a few days before for three days at night after work and the morning before work. This was the only time I could spare since work was so busy that week. I tried to do as much prep as I can to avoid rushing things on Saturday (the party was on Saturday evening). Not to mention that I had to make another cake for Sunday the day after. Luckily, my sister in law and her brother helped me making the figurines. It was so hard for me making the glasses for the boy since it was so tiny, and my hands were shaking, but finally we managed to pull it off after a few hours (yes, we're still amateurs at making figurines :D). All of the filling, frosting, assembling, and decorating were done on Saturday. The design wasn't actually planned, except for the top tier part. It was kind of an instant idea, which I don't think turned out so bad after all :). Even the heart idea came up half an hour before I had to get ready. It was a crazy day, or crazy week I should say as I was on a rush the whole time. The cake was done VERY last minute, and I was about 30 minutes late than what I had planned.

Luckily, the cake landed fine on the table. It was really heavy and I could barely carry it. I had to brush the ribbon and the hearts with pearl dust on the little venue, with some guests watching (which are my own friends too). Overall, I was pretty happy with the look. I was worried that white and baby blue color combo would make the cake looks like a baby shower cake. But I think it turned out okay, sweet and simple. Sure it's not elegant, just like any traditional wedding cake should be. But I didn't want it to be traditional, I wanted it to be fun and I was so glad that the bride and groom were happy with it.

Here are some pictures of the bride and groom. I have to say though, I think Kathy is the most beautiful bride I have ever seen. I wish you could see her wedding pictures when she was in her wedding dress. She looked really pretty, and not just pretty, but really beautiful. Richard surely is a lucky guy, not just because he has a beautiful wife on the outside, but also beautiful on the inside. CONGRATULATIONS for the newly wed! Wish you a beautiful life together and may your marriage be a blessing for other people around you :).

ps: Photos are courtesy of San2, a talented photographer friend of mine (I'm surely gonna miss you San when you're leaving :( )