To Have and To Hold
To Do The ‘Do
To Bake a Cake
To “Break It Down”
To Play Dress-Up
To Have and To Hold - Again

To Say Cheese: The Fams

Wowwwweee, my last post was a MONTH ago.  Quick word of warning: you always think you cannot be busier than you are while wedding planning.  Untrue.  After the wedding ends, expect an avalanche of stuff you were forgiven for not doing due to wedding planning.  Anyway, a long way of saying - I am getting back into recap mode.

One of my favorite DIY projects for the wedding were my origami escort cards.  In our last installment, these babies were oddly escort-card-less.  Well, thanks to Mr. BG and MIL BG's hard work in the days before the wedding, MOST people were able to find their seats. :)

We set up the flowers in vases sorted alphabetically by last name.  Because our table numbers were years that were in no sequential order, we also set up a sign with a table layout explaining where to find their table and what to do with their escort card once they got there (and there maaaaaay have been a threatening note about not eating the bride's food).

Here's how the setup turned out:

And put to use:

What was your favorite DIY project?  Or which one are you most looking forward to seeing in action?

Back in the day, I had my heart set on some true geek-wedding favors: rubik’s cubes.  Well, when Mr. BG (and cost) dashed my hopes (that’s right, Mr. BG, DASHED), I was sure no favor would appease me.

I think the problem that we all face with favors is – we want people to like it, and things that people like tend to cost more than a few bucks.

So first I was thinking along the lines of – I want it to be something they take home rather than something that is devoured on-site – silly me.  I didn’t really GET the edible favors thing until I read a blog that said something along the lines of, “if I can’t eat it, I don’t want it.”  Simple, yes – but it spawned my enlightenment.

In the end, I decided to compromise with myself (yes, you heard me, I have to compromise WITH MYSELF).  I decided to make maple sugar cookies, in the shape of maple leaves, and include a maple leaf cookie cutter (which I ordered from David’s Bridal, which sounds odd, but it was awesome because I had a coupon for 25 free favors as a result of buying my dress there).

We baked the cookies on Tuesday, and Mr. BG and MIL BG diligently stuffed them Wednesday (with the help, of course, of my assembly line).  And here’s how those suckers turned out:

Everyone got a cookie-cutter:

Plus 3 cookies (this is the unfrosted side, but – there’s a frosted side):

Which we sealed in a bag with a monogrammed sticker:

Then we stuffed everything into a favor box with lotsa tissue paper and a note.  It’s hard to read, but what it says is:

“He’s from Vermont

She’s from Massachusetts

They live in New Hampshire

And got married in Maine

So in true New England fashion

They’d like to thank you

With some maple sugar cookies”

And then we sealed them with a kiss – oh, sorry, that’s a ribbon:

These were actually a ridiculous hit.  I don’t deserve credit because it’s not my recipe, but we’ve since gotten several “best cookies ever” comments, and I still owe several people the recipe (in retrospect, it probably would have been cute to include the recipe with the cookie cutter, but ah well) – but you guys will get it first. J  Just in case anyone wants to make a whole lot of delicious maple-ness, here you go (from www.foodnetwork.com, with my notes):

Maple Cookies

Recipe courtesy Dennis Brady

Show: Emeril Live

Episode: Emeril's Cookie Contest

Cookies:

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon maple extract

1/4 cup maple syrup

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Heavy cream

Maple Glaze:

1 cup confectioners' sugar

1/4 cup maple sugar

1 teaspoon maple extract

1/4 cup unsalted butter

In a medium bowl, cream the butter, then gradually add the sugar and continue to beat. Add the eggs, vanilla extract, maple extract, and maple syrup, and beat until light and fluffy.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together. Thoroughly blend into the butter mixture. Form into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for at least 4 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Roll the dough out 1/4-inch thick. With a drinking glass, cut out cookies and transfer to parchment lined baking sheet. Brush the cookies with heavy cream. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes.

Meanwhile make the maple glaze. Mix all the ingredients in a saucepan. Stir over medium heat until it just reaches the boiling point. Brush or dip the tops of the cookies in the maple glaze while still hot. Let cool. These taste better the next day.

NOTES:

-Recipe makes about 100 cookies.

-20 cookies on a sheet for about 10 minutes in our oven at 375.

-Used salted butter, left out the salt.

-Used maple flavoring rather than maple extract.

-Used maple syrup rather than maple sugar for the glaze.

-Never used heavy cream.

Num num num.  Enjoy!

Part 1: To Bake a Cake

I just want to take a second to thank everyone for their super sweet feedback on my labor of love a.k.a. my wedding cake:

Really, I cannot believe how ridiculously supportive all of your comments were.  It means SO MUCH to me.

That said, I have to get to the logistics – gasp!  Again, I will start by saying that I do not recommend that anyone do this unless they have experience and/or equipment, and here’s why – gulp!  All said, I would estimate that making my own cake cost me – GUH!

$350!!!!!!!!!!

It’s CRAZY, I know!  Please, allow me to explain.

First, equipment:

• Pans - Because I am rather spastic, I literally did not decide what sizes my tiers would be until the day I baked the cake (the Wednesday before the wedding).  Therefore, during the year’s time that elapsed between the big decision and the big wedding, I bought: 1-6”, 2-8”, 1-10”, 1-12”, 1-14”, and 1-16” pan for a total of $86.  In the end, my tiers were 8-10-14 and I could have spent closer to $35.
• Caddies – I bought a 14” caddy for each layer (3 caddies, $8/ea. = $24).  Incidentally, the 14” caddy is actually too small for a 14” cake, so I ended up transporting the 14” cake on the upside-down 16” cake pan (oh, hey, look, I guess I did use it)!
• Cake release - $7 - As it turns out, this by itself was by far the best way to get a clean cake out of the pans I was using.
• Icing bags – I spent a whopping $4 on these puppies, but let me point out – Ziploc bags serve the same purpose for marginal cost.
• Fondant dye - $15 - Oh, uhh, again, I’m spastic – so I bought every color of the rainbow, including several shades of green and several shades of red.
• Icing spatula - $6, and did I need it?  No.  But did I enjoy feeling like a real baker because of it?  Yessuh.
• Fondant smoother - $5 and worth every penny.  This is just a flat piece of plastic with a handle, but it helps to push the fondant against the icing when you lay it on the cake.
• Fondant cutter/embosser - $4 – When I bought this, I thought it was useless… it’s like a mini pizza-cutter.  However, when I tried cutting thin strips of fondant for my middle layer with anything else, I failed, so I guess little Mr. Fondant-Cutter proved me wrong.
• Pearl dust - $8 - Again, I bought several colors – and ended up using it ONLY for the fondant balls around the edges.
• Fondant rolling pin - $7 – Useful only for making the fondant super thin.  Also, I used the rounded end of it to make the curly edges of my gum paste “calla lilies.”
• 10” leveler – For $3, you can set this leveler to a certain height, and like a cheese slicer, it’s supposed to level the top of your cake.  Honestly, I think a bread knife and some patience works better.
• Fondant cutter sets – I bought two cookie-cutter-like sets to make the cutouts for the middle layer of the cake for a total of $6.  One was various sizes of a spiky flower, and the other were various sizes of leaves.  I made the dots using the end of a straw, and the strips of fondant were cut out with the cutter/embosser.

So, folks, there you have it - $175 spent on JUST EQUIPMENT.  If I could do it again, I would a) figure out what pans I needed beforehand, b) figure out what fondant colors I wanted beforehand, and c) just plain not buy the leveler, the pearl dust, and the icing bags.

Next, cake materials:

·         Fondant – This was, by far, the biggest expense.  And, had I not needed a ridiculous amount of practice, I would have spared myself quite a bit of that expense.  However, I would say that, including trials and the final cake, I spent about $80 on fondant.  At Michael’s, you can get a 5 lb. box for $20, so I probably went through about 20 pounds of fondant… which is ridiculous.  For the actual cake, I think I used about 8 pounds of fondant for an 8-10-14, 5” high tiers (but don’t hold me to that – there are several websites that provide guidelines, and this is one of them).

·         Gum paste - $5 for an 8 oz. pack which I used to make the “calla lilies.”

·         Cake mixes – $40 - This includes all my taste testing and trials.  For my final cake, I used 8 boxes of strawberry cake for the top two layers and 6 boxes of pound cake for the bottom layer.

·         White chocolate chips, sugar, cream cheese, eggs, and raspberry pie filling - $50 to make some pretty yummy homemade frostings/fillings.

So that makes $175 spent on cake materials.

And then finally, the details on how that sucker got to the wedding:

• Wednesday, I did all the supply-buying and cake-baking.  I frosted those suckers up, cleared out the majority of my fridge, and let them sit overnight in the fridge (I’m pretty sure this is recommended – but I’m not a baker).
• Wednesday night, I drew a bunch of sketches of what I wanted the middle layer to look like, and I hated them all.  I finally decided that I could not live without a damask pattern, so I cut myself a little damask stencil.
• Thursday morning – oh, did I mention I still didn’t know how this was going to get safely to Maine?  Anyway, Thursday morning, I mixed my fondant with dye to get the colors I was looking for.  Quick tip: nuking the fondant for 10-20 seconds makes it more pliable, but also stickier (so have corn starch of confectioner’s sugar on hand).  By the time I was done, I kid you not, I had blisters on the palms of my hands.
• Thursday afternoon, I attempted my damask pattern.  It was a failure.  I just did not have the right implements to cut the pattern I was looking for (exacto knife didn’t “cut” it – hehehe GET IT?).  I did, however, have some fondant cutters that I’d bought just in case, so hey, I winged it.  Meanwhile, Mr. BG and his mommy rolled, like, a million little white fondant balls and shimmied them around in some pearl dust.
• Thursday night, LATE, I made my calla lilies out of gum paste.  To make these, I just cut out leaf-patterns, mashed the edges with the rounded side of my fondant roller, rolled them up around a piece of red fondant, and let them dry in a dissected paper towel tube.  Meanwhile, the Mr. BG-mommy team cut dowels to size and stuck them strategically in the bottom two layers for support.
• Friday, we packed up our three layers (two in caddies, one on an upside-down 16” pan with tinfoil tented around it), our fondant balls, an icing bag, and extra frosting.  When we got it to the venue, we put it down on a 3'x3' slab of wood that Mr. BG had painted white, stacked our layers, frosted the edges, and applied the fondant balls.
• Saturday, at some point, someone put red flower petals all around her and made her look pretty. J

So there you have it – the craziness that is making your own wedding cake when equipped with nooooo experience.  As I said last time, yes, I would do it again – because I am stubborn and felt like I had something to prove.  And if you, like me, want to show yourself that it’s possible – or if you, unlike me, know what the heck you’re doing, then I say go for it.  However, if you are looking to save more than you might spend on a pair of shoes from Payless, I say skip it. J