My sneaky sneaky project!!

Yay! I can finally share my sneaky plans I have had the past few weeks. :) I have been planning to make a replica of my parent's wedding cake for their 30 year anniversary (which is today). Before I go into how I made the cake, I must tell you how perfectly my cake idea fitted into their celebratory plans. I already had the idea of making a cake for my parents when my dad called and said he wanted to surprise my mom with a little mini ceremony or vow renewal on their anniversary. He wanted to make sure the family would be there and we could do it at a park. I suggested Crane's Roost, a beautiful park in Altamonte Springs and plans were set! Little did he know that his plans fit perfectly with my desire surprise them with a replica of their wedding cake! Hehe! I ended up asking my dad for their wedding album and lead him to think I was making a creative moments album for them. All I really needed was a picture of their original wedding cake. Muahahaha!




My sister Stephanie and I got together a few days ago for a craft store trip and I spent the weekend prepping the cake (baking and dirty ice it) so we could decorate on Sunday.

First I baked the pound cake. I let it cool, cut off the rounded tops of the cake (and ate it... yum!!), stacked it on the trays and did a thin layer of buttercream icing (I will share the recipe on another day) to keep crumbs from getting in the way when we decorate the cake. Then I put the cake in the fridge overnight. This is what they looked like in the fridge...



Then I made some royal icing to make the hearts, the "30" and the monogram for the top of the cake. To make the arched hearts I put parchment paper on a rolling pin, drew the hearts with royal icing onto the parchment paper and let it dry overnight. Royal icing dries hard (though fragile) and I was able to pick it up after it drying and place it on the cake (using more royal icing as glue).

After the cake sat in the fridge overnight, Stephanie and I made buttercream icing to cover the cake and royal icing for decorating. The decorating part surprised me at how fast it went. It actually took longer to bake the cake and set it up for decorating than it did to decorate it!

Here it is....







The top cake was butter pound cake with chocolate filling and the lower cake was butter pound cake with whipped icing for the filling. Yummo!!