Whimsical Wedding Cake

My latest wedding cake creation was done for some friends of mine, Jody and Sadaat. Their wedding had a "Pirates and Fairies" theme, so they had asked for a cake to match- something fun and whimsical! Their main colors were a rich purple and metallic gold, with some reds and golden yellows for accents.

Since their guest list was over 300 people, Jody and I decided on a 5-tiered, styrofoam cake for display, and sheet cakes for the kitchen to cut for the guests. We had decided on using styrofoam for the cake because it was going to be a "topsy turvy" style, in which the tiers are all slanted. And, just as it sounds, it's a bit of a balancing act, especially when a cake is as large as we were making it! So to be safe, a styrofoam "cake" was made by sawing and sanding into the correct shapes and sizes.

I used royal icing (an icing made of confectioner's sugar and egg whites) to cover the styrofoam, which I then airbrushed in their chosen purple color, and used a metallic gold airbrush spray to highlight some of the tiers. Some fondant was used for the stripes and swirls. Fondant is another type of icing that has the same consistency as play-dough, which can be rolled out or sculpted.

Jody and Sadaat wanted a piece to cut, so I included a small side piece along the very bottom tier that was actual cake. The piece was covered in the same icing and was disguised by flowers. After the cutting, the flowers only needed to be rearranged and the cake could continue to be on display!