Pretty in Pastel Pink Wedding Cake + Fruit Cake Recipe
The summer is here. (Although someone should tell the temperature to keep pace!) The wedding season has been ongoing for several months. This cake was made for an engineer and architect in November.
It’s a well-known fact that architects and engineers don’t always get along. Engineers are often annoyed by what they perceive as the ‘impractical plans’ of an architect. You can probably imagine how architects feel when engineers try to limit their creativity by focusing only on safety and practical needs.
This couple was very well prepared and designed a beautiful cake that is structurally sound. (Putting My Engineering Skills to Practice!) While looking delicate and beautiful
I have been kindly permitted to share the professional photos taken by Peanut Productions. Click on their name to view their work and contact them. The images below are credited to their work, but the rest is mine!
Cakey details were…
- Bottom Tier: Three layers of 12″ Chocolate Cake Made using pastry chef Jenny McCoy’s recipe from this Craftsy course. It’s not available on the internet, but in the past, I used this recipe from Sweetapolita. I needed something firmer to support that many layers. Jenny’s cake is perfect. The layers were filled using chocolate buttercream from the I Am Baker recipe. There’s also another similar recipe for chocolate cake at that link.
- Middle Tier: Three layers of 9″ Lemon yoghurt Cake, as per the recipe from Chelsea Sugar, which was tested with other recipes and proved to be the best in terms of stability and texture for a large cake such as this. I soak the layers of cooked cake in lemon syrup (also from the recipe) by poking small holes in it while still hot and then squirting it all over. What’s not to like for lemon lovers? Lemon curd combined with basic buttercream!
- Top Tier: Three layers of 6″ Fruit cake filled with white chocolate Ganache and covered to seal the cake later when the bride and the groom can enjoy it on their first anniversary.
Now, here’s the thing… this was the first time I’ve been asked to make a rich, solid, like-your-gran-makes-at-Christmas fruit cake. My lovely MIL, Mrs Adams, was more than happy to share the recipe for the fruit cake she had. It had been passed down to her by MIL (also Ms Adams), who probably got it through her Cake Decorators Guild.
It was evident after a test run that the recipe worked. This recipe will be shared with the world by me posting it on my blog.
Mrs Adams’ Fruit Cake
The quantities below are enough to make a square cake 10 inches in diameter, but for this wedding, I needed only a 6″ round cake. So, I divided the recipe evenly between the two tins and multiplied it by 0.4, which equaled 4 eggs. It cooked in three hours and produced 2″-high cakes.
- 450g Butter at Room Temperature
- 450g Brown sugar
- 680g of flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 c golden syrup
- 10 eggs at room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla essence
- 1 teaspoon almond essence
- 1.8kg Fruit Mix (store-bought, or your creation: raisins, glace cherry, peel, ginger…whatever you like!
- 1 and 1/2 c ginger ale or sherry
- 3/4 cup orange juice
Line your tins with baking paper. Put your tins on top of a thin piece of cardboard and place it onto the oven tray. Wrap a thin strip of cardboard around each tin and secure it with masking tape. Roll newspaper sheets into flat strips and wrap them around each tin. Secure with masking tape over the cardboard strips, then tie cooking twine. Cotton, not plastic! See the image below.
Use a stand mixer or a handheld mixer to cream the butter and sugar until they are combined and lighter. Beat well after adding each egg and golden syrup. Add essences last.
Then, fold in the flour and baking powder. At the end, fold in the fruit mixture with its “juices.”
Fill the cake tins with batter. Press the batter into the corners and edges. Use a palette knife or a flat spoon to level the cake tins. Tap them against your kitchen counter to remove any air.
The whole process of making fruit/Christmas cakes is surprisingly simple. Cream butter and sugar, add flour, and fold in the fruit. It is important not to rush the baking process. It takes a long time to bake so that patience will be required.
Thank you for reading this post. We wish you a happy summer or at least summery thoughts! To you, wherever you may be!