a wedding cake

I have been a little absent from my favourite corner of the inter tubes for I have been as busy as a bee. Among other things I had the honor of making a wedding cake for my baby brother and his lovely new bride. I have made a few wedding cakes over the years, my own included, but only ever for family as I find it all a tad stressful. This one especially aged me a few decades on the day, as cream cheese frosting and warm rooms don't marry well (see what I did there?).

Now the bride didn't want a traditional fruit cake or the popular cupcake towers and biscuit cake that are doing the rounds. So through the magic of Pinterest we came up with a few ideas and decided on a classic three tier cake with a soft frosting but with a different sponge cake on the inside of each. The bottom 12" tier was the Black Magic cake from my friends Ron and Mona Wise book, The Chef and I. It's a lovely moist choca-mocha squidgy sponge that was lovely with the icing. It was a big hit. The middle 9" cake was a Red Velvet sponge to match the brides Jimmy Choos.

Those shoes...

The top tier was a lovely lemon poppy seed cake. That recipe came to me from my mate Aran in Rua, he is a man who knows a lot about cake. It is one I make all the time at home in a loaf tin with a little bit of lemon syrup drizzled over the top. It's a favourite with the family and works well with orange too.

All the cakes were baked the week before the wedding and frozen. Then they were sandwiched on their cake boards and covered in a thin layer of the frosting. This stops any crumbs from getting on the final layer of frosting when I was piping on the swirls, which look impressive but are also easy to do. A piping bag and an open six point star nozzle is all that is required.

Here is the recipe for the lemon poppy seed as a lot of people had asked. It could not be easier.

Lemon Poppy Seed Loaf Cake
2 eggs
175g sugar
175g plain flour
175g very soft butter
1 teaspoon baking powder
Finely grated zest of two lemons
75ml sour cream.
25g Poppy seeds, toasted for about 10 mins.

Sieve the flour and baking powder together. Mix together with all other ingredients.
Grease and line a 1 kg/2 lb loaf tin. Bake in the centre of a 175C oven until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out cleanly. Drizzle with juice of a lemon and icing sugar fondant. or make a batch of the cream cheese frosting that I used. The quantities are 25g of butter, 200g cream cheese - (Philadelphia is fine, mascarpone is nice for a special occasion) and 100g of icing sugar - leave everything come to room temperature and then beat together until smooth. spoon or pipe over the cake or serve on the side.

Congratulations Danny & Ger