Willow Tree Wedding Cake

Well, it's finally done! Elaina and Peter are now Mr. and Mrs. Scougle! I'm so happy for those two and what a beautiful wedding! I do hope though that someone caught the ringbearer's antics on film. What a little ham! If you missed it, he was up there squinting at the audience and scolding the flower girl for something. (I never did figure that one out.) The funniest part though was when he took his two fingers and did the "I'm watching you!" thing (you know, when you point the two fingers at your eyes then at the person you're watching.) Hmph, glad it wasn't my kid!

Oh wait, it was! That boy! lol On one hand I wanted to throttle him (I am the mom afterall!) On the other hand I was trying hard not to giggle! (Again, I am his mom!)

He was so cute (I'm a little biased but whatever! :) )

Okay, now for the cake. Peter and Elaina are diehard chocoholics if their cake is any indicator. They wanted a chocolate cake with bittersweet ganache filling. We had a few changes to the outside since they initially wanted ganache flooding the tops of the cakes. They changed their minds though and went with a bittersweet Italian Meringue buttercream for the top and a milk chocolate frosting for the sides. To get this effect I frosted the cake upside down.

No really, I did! I made a template for the size cake I was frosting then taped it to a sturdy surface. Then I taped a piece of parchment paper over that so I could see the template (a big cirlcle.) I filled in the circle with bittersweet frosting and built the cake on top of that, upside down. When I was done with all the cake layers I frosted it with milk chocolate and chilled it for awhile before flipping it over. Then I peeled off the parchment paper and Voila! A two tone cake that actually looked decent.

When we were planning it I realized that the only cake stand I had wasn't going to look good with all that chocolate since it was silver. So I asked my darling husband if he would build me something that would complement what I had in mind. Being the nice guy he is, he said yes and made this beautiful creation:

It was so chilly outside that the cake was pretty firm. It was a little difficult to cut because of that and the slices didn't all look very pretty but they tasted okay I think. Elaina liked it anyway and that's really all that mattered, right? She told me that when she tasted it she thought she'd died and gone to heaven. And I know she loved how it looked. Mission accomplished! Phew!

Okay, I posted two pictures because I wanted you to be able to see the tops of the cake but I also wanted you to be able to see how pretty Jon's cake stand looked. Oh, and those are truffles around the base of each tier.

Oops! I forgot this one...

I completely forgot to post Elaina's shower cake when I made it. I think it was my favorite combination of flavors yet! In fact, I liked it so much I don't think I will make it again for a looooong time! ;)




It was a yellow cake with rum flavored moistening syrup. The filling was white chocolate with toffee pieces folded in; and the frosting was milk chocolate Italian meringue buttercream.

I will be working on the wedding cake over the next couple of days (so don't call me! lol) I'll post pictures of that one Sunday or Monday (depending on how quickly I recover!)