DIY often spells D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R

Cake.  How hard can it be?  Flour, eggs, water and frosting – right?  Unless you’re a pastry chef, an engineer or an architect – this is not a place to cut corners or think you can do it yourself.

I have had more than one occasion where the bride and/or her family or well-meaning friend baked the wedding cake.  In theory it sounds like a relatively easy task – everyone has baked a cake, cupcakes or cookies in their lifetime.   But let me tell you, wedding cakes are a whole different animal.

I have cut into cakes of amateurs who thought they were doing the bride a favor and found a myriad of sins – ranging from using frosting to mask holes and gaps, to stuffing plastic bags into the voids then frosting over them.  Not to mention the use of wooden pencils and plastic knives to stack the cake with.

A well-baked and well-built wedding cake can stand alone.  It has been baked with a consistency that allows a little bit of weight to be placed on it (i.e. cake topper) and has been built to withstand the weight of itself (stacked cake with columns, etc).

We haven’t even talked about cake flavors and fillings yet… Pastry chefs know (through their training) what you can fill a cake with and what never works.  Betty Crocker’s intent was never to be used for a wedding cake.  And Smucker’s didn’t make strawberry jelly to be used as cake filling.  These two things together are a recipe for a disaster.  A boxed cake mix doesn’t hold together well and strawberry jelly cake filling turns into a drippy, runny mess that causes the cake layers to slip off each other.

There is also engineering and architecture that goes into a wedding cake.  Although it may look like the cake is stacked on itself – it truly is not.  There are very specific plates, spacers and columns used to make sure your cake stays where it should.

Also, many DIY bakers don’t realize that those cute little pearls used to dot the cake are actually edible.  I have picked many plastic pearls off a cake before I served it to guests.

Do yourself a favor – shop around, taste lots of cakes and thank your friend/aunt/mother/neighbor very politely and say “no, thank you” when they offer to bake your wedding cake.  Remember – it’s an important “Kodak moment” accessory and it needs to look great.  And it’s the last thing your guests will eat at your reception – don’t leave a bad taste in their mouths.