Save Money: Make Your Own Wedding Cake

Making your own wedding cake can save you a lot of money in your wedding budget. It is not as difficult as you might think, and can really add a very special and romantic personal touch to your special day. Consider learning simple cake decorating skills in order to make your own wedding cake, a friend or daughter's cake, or even learn to make wedding cakes to earn extra money.

The first thing to remember about making your own wedding cake, or learning to decorate cakes, is to give yourself plenty of time. You'll want to practice for at least a couple of weeks, and if at all possible, do a trial run of the entire cake. In addition to practice time, bear in mind that a cake like this one will take at least two days to complete and that you definitely don't want to be finishing it on your wedding day. So plan to bake the cakes, let them cool and frost them two days before your wedding, and then do the decoration and construction the day before. Once a cake is covered in buttercream and before it's cut it will stay delicious at least a couple of days, so you could even do this three or four days before the wedding.

Use cake mixes! This is perfectly acceptable, they taste great and they stay moist for a good long while. They also make a cake that's easier to handle and move around. It's also crucial to level the cake layers. A cake leveler is a great investment when making pillared or tiered cakes.

A pillared tiered cake is very impressive looking, but it's not as difficult as everyone will think it is. The Wilton decorating company is a great company and has tons of resources for home cake decorators. Their cake dividers and pillars make it very easy to make a tiered cake. They even come with supports, so you don't have to cut dowels to put in the bottom cake. One thing to remember when using pillars is to make sure they're all facing straight when you put them on, because they're nerve-wracking to adjust once you get the top cake on.

You will need to buy the correct supplies to get great looking results. The cardboard cake circles really are worth the investment, since they make it so much easier to move the frosted cakes. You'll want a turn table to use while icing and decorating. Of course, for a tiered cake, the separator plates and pillars are a must. Disposable bags are convenient but aren't an absolute need. You'll want tips appropriate to your decorating plan. On my cake, I use four different sizes of writing or piping tips (round openings to make the bead-like borders and flower centers), two different sizes of drop flower tip (the little purple flowers), and two different sizes of leaf tip (pretty self explanatory, two sizes to correspond with the scale of each tier). You might want to invest in a whole set of tips so you can practice and experiment.

How can you buy all these things, plus the specially sized pans without spending just as much as you would buying a cake? Well, considering how much a bakery cake costs, you have a long way to go, but the best plan is to pick them up one at a time over a course of a few months with the 40% and 50% off coupons that craft stores issue. Michael's usually puts a 50% off coupon in the paper every week, and this can save you a ton of money if you're willing to buy your supplies a week at a time.

After you've got your supplies, you'll want to hone a few techniques to be sure that your cake looks professional. Learning to frost your cake so it's very smooth is the most important part of turning out an elegant and professional looking cake. Of course, you could use fondant, but I think it's kind of hard to work with, but more importantly, buttercream tastes better!

So how can you get a beautiful smooth finish with butter cream icing? There are a few tips I can give you. Use a nice long icing spatula to spread the frosting. Pile a bunch on top and work it around and over the sides and down. Wipe your spatula clean very often. This may seem wasteful, but it crucial to a smooth finish. Use a very fine mist of water on the surface as you are doing the final smoothing. This will help the spatula glide and keep it from sticking and pulling up peaks. After the frosting has dried overnight and has a crust on it, put a piece of plain paper against it and rub it gently to smooth out any small imperfections.

Royal icing is a kind of icing that dries hard, like candies. This is a great property to take advantage of when planning your cake. You can make lots of decorations, like flowers or bows, weeks ahead of time, store them in air tight containers and just add them to the cake when it's time to decorate. This takes a lot of the pressure off of you, since you can always make lots of royal icing decorations and then just pick the best ones for the cake. Also, since you're not piping them directly on the cake, you don't have to worry about big mess ups.

If you do make a mistake while piping on the cake, don't panic. As long as you've let the frosting sit out and dry over night before the decorating was started, you're in good shape. You'll find that most times, fresh buttercream icing can be gently wiped and scraped off of dried buttercream with hardly a trace left behind.

One tip about the bead border on my wedding cake. If you, like me, have a hard time piping nice smooth beads with no peak on them, just pipe a row, and then with a finger dipped into powdered sugar, and a light touch, go back and smooth down all the peaks, making nice round beads.

Once you have practiced and are familiar and comfortable working with cake and icing, you'll find you've got tons of ideas for cakes. It is best to keep your wedding cake simple, since it will be much easier to pull of a really elegant presentation. Be sure that the decorations and techniques you use are very neat and clean, and your cake will be sure to be a hit.