Blush Pink Wedding Cake & Cookies

I don't often get to do classy wedding cakes or fancy elegant cake designs with flowers and such. Most of the cakes and treats I've made have been for kids birthday parties, lots of fun colours and cute cartoons! So when one of my regular customers asked if I could make a wedding cake for her brother, I was a little nervous about pulling it off. But, I love challenges! So grateful for the trust and opportunity, and am glad that everything turned out really well!

Blush Pink & White Wedding Cake & Cookies

The cake was 3 tiers of the ever-popular Devil's food cake, filled with luscious whipped dark chocolate ganache. The design was "simple" - all tiers covered in white fondant, with a large blush pink rose in the centre, with flowers cascading down. "Simple", indeed! Haahah. So, lets get to making flowers. 

tools to make gumpaste petals

Rose petals are straighforward to make, even without a fancy rose cutter. For the cascading petals on the cake, cut circles out of gum paste, and then, using a ball tool, with the circles on a firm sponge board, thin out the edge of the petal using firm even pressure, moving the ball tool all the way around the circle. This will cause the edges to ruffle gently and randomly. 

little helper's hands, showing how to ruffle petals

Once the petals are dry, bring them to life by dry brushing them with some lustre dust. Here I've softened up some Wilton Orchid Pink pearl dust with CK Ultra Silk White designer designer luster dust. I love the sheen that the silk white dust added to the petals! 

apply luster dust on using a dry brush

shiny, luster-dusted petals on the right

For the large flower in the centre of the cake, make petals in the same way, except don't let the loose petals dry. Form the bud in the centre of the flower by attaching a small cone shaped piece of gum paste to some floral wire. Let that dry. Then, wrap the bud with one of the petals. Continue building petals around this central bud, flaring them out so the edges fall softly. I used a slightly darker shade of pink for the central petals, and then a lighter shade for the outer petals. 

gumpaste flower, in progress

You may be thinking that this isn't exactly a huge flower. Yup, it isn't that huge... yet! We will build up the flower with more petals after attaching it onto the cake. Anyway, let the flower dry and then dry brush with luster dust.  

Massa Ticino fondant-covered 8" cake

Now that our flower and petals are ready, we can get to working on the cake. All three cake tiers were covered in Massa Ticino tropic white fondant. I love working with this brand because it makes covering even tall, large diameter cakes a cinch. You can cover a cold cake straight out of the fridge (in an air-conditioned room, of course) and not have to deal with cracking and sweating fondant. 

10" cake covered in smooth white fondant

Since it's a large heavy cake, we will need to prepare a sturdy base for it to sit on. If you can get your hands on a thick cake drum, that would be ideal. But, I've been having a hard time sourcing for these locally, so I have a "cheater" solution: Stick 4 regular cake boards together (I used strong double-sided tape). Then, cover the top board with fondant. Wrap a pretty ribbon around the stack of cake boards, and boom! you've got yourself an easy to make, DIY fancy cake base! 

stack cake boards together for a stronger base

As usual, when stacking cakes, it is very important to have each tier on its own cake board, with wooden dowels or fat bubble tea straws in the tier below to supper the weight. Without these supports, the weight of the the upper tiers will cause the whole cake to sink into itself. Not a good thing!

stack tiers with proper support dowels

I only stacked the bottom two tiers, leaving the upper tier to be stacked at the venue. I find that it's safer to transport this way. To build the large central flower, stick the gumpaste flower in the centre of the cake, applying some royal icing on the back of the flower to help it stick. Stab a wooden dowel directly underneath the flower and into the bottom cake tier, so that the flower is resting on the dowel. This wooden dowel is very important as it will support the weight of the flower and all the petals. (I learned this the hard way, when, after attaching all the surrounding petals with royal icing the first time, the entire flower fell off the cake, due to the unsupported weight!!) 

Attach the loose petals around the central flower using thicker consistency royal icing, building the flower up. Attach a few petals around the rest of the cake and cake board, to give a cascading effect. 

Wedding Cake with lovely cascading, blush pink rose petals

Together with the wedding cake, I also got to make 100 sugar cookies, individually wrapped with pretty ribbon! The cookies were decorated with fondant, bordered with royal icing, with the names of the couple written on all the hearts and "LOVE" written on all the circles. I prefer covering sugar cookies with a thin layer of fondant rather than flooding with royal icing, because I find that the royal icing makes it too sweet! (and I have the biggest sweet tooth too...)

personalised heart cookies

simple, yet elegant LOVE cookies

wedding cookie favours

lotsa hearts in the making

Individually bagging & tying up all these wedding cookie favours with pretty ribbon gave me plenty of chance to practice my ribbon-tying skills! I used to always use coloured twist-ties to tie up the bags (muuuch faster & easier to do), but these ribbons really make these cookie favours look more fancy and elegant. 

all wrapped up with a pretty bow

wedding cookie favour army

Here's the fully put together wedding cake and all the cookie favours, safely delivered to the wedding reception! The lighting wasn't that great, so please pardon the pics. So happy to have added a sweet touch to the wedding couple's big day. Congratulations, Sourav & Mishti! 

romantic, cascaading petals

large central flower

view from the top! 

wedding cake & cookie favours

Congratulations, Mr. & Mrs. Biswas!