In the previous two posts, I have discussed with you how to bake and frost a wedding cake in Part One, and in Part Two, I showed you how to stack a three tiered wedding cake. In this post tutorial, I will show you how to decorate a wedding cake using ribbon and artificial flowers.
Creating a wedding cake that is specially matched to coordinate a bride’s special day is super easy with all of the options that are readily available now-a-days. Did that sound like old school country? Changing up icing colours is one way, but an easier way to do so is to coordinate ribbon and flower colours.
To decorate a wedding cake you can use a variety of different types of flowers:
Sugar flowers: Pros- Edible, Cons- very fragile, time consuming to make, one time use
Real Flowers: Pros- Beautiful, can match the bouquets exactly, Cons-smell, require flower spikes, droop quickly, one time use
Artificial/Silk: Pros- easy to work with and trim to exact sizing etc, long lasting, reusable, Cons: may be hard to find matching colours/type etc.
How to Decorate a Wedding Cake
Materials:
- Three tiered cake (see Part One and Part Two)
- 1 1/2″ polyester pink ribbon
- 4 large artificial pink Roses
- small pink artificial Hydrangeas
- artificial greenery
- vanilla buttercream
Procedure:
- Cut ribbon lengths as follows: 33″-10″ cake, 27″-8″ cake, 20″-6″ cake.
- Wrap each ribbon length around the base of the cakes, ensuring that the ribbon is along the bottom of each tier. Use small amounts of buttercream to “glue” the ribbon to the cake.
- Place greenery between the bottom and middle tier in desired location. Place one large rose in the centre of the greenery and two small hydrangea pieces on either side of the rose.
- Repeat placement of roses, greenery and hydrangeas in desired locations between tiers.
- Place a collection of greens, roses and hydrangeas on top of the cake if there is no topper to be placed there.
The cake can be placed in the fridge until it is ready for delivery time. It is best to not have the cake sit out more than an hour or two prior to the cake being served and eaten.
Hi Jenn,
I stumbled across your YouTube page and have fallen in love with your tutorials! I’m attempting my first tiered cake soon and will be using your homemade cake and buttercream icing recipes. I’ve looked around and seen controversy on how to properly store a tiered cake. Do you cover it, leave it on the shelf, refrigerate, etc.? Also, how soon in advance to an event do you typically make the cakes? The day of or the day(s) before?
Thanks so much!
I have a separate cake fridge in my garage, and I put all of my cakes into that, either in a sealed cake carrier, or wrapped in plastic wrap. You can make the cake a couple of week ahead of time and freeze them until you need it. I would decorate it the day of, or the night before.
Hello Jenn
Thanks for this video, i really feel confident making this 3 tier cake. Please can you mail me the the exact recipe of the batter.
I will verry much appreciate your help.
Thanks
All of the information for this cake is in the three part series.
Thank You so much for your videos! I’m attempting to make my own wedding cake, I’m freaking out but want to try it. The one thing I’m having trouble with is figuring out how much batter to make. I bought cake pans there is a 6″, 8″ and a 10″. How much batter total would I need to make these to do a 3 tier cake.
Hello Jenn,
I am making my first wedding cake. Your tutorial makes me calm and gave me confidence that I can do it! How many people do you think this cake will feed at the wedding? Also, can you give me a round about price range for a cake of this size? Thank you
Hi. Good luck with your cake! This will feed around 80-85 people. Price depends on you. You need to factor in your expenses and time. Working on pricing is always hard- it’s the hardest part of cake decorating IMO. Don’t under charge- you don’t want to be known as the “cheap cake lady”.
Excellent tutorial!!!! I’m baking my friend’s wedding cake – it’s coming up in a couple of weeks. I’m going to use artificial flowers and I’ve been doing lots of reading on how to attach them to the cake. Some people say they stick the stems directly into the cake, but personally, I don’t like that idea, especially if there is wire. Some have said they use toothpicks/straws. My mom suggested wrapping the stems in plastic wrap or tin foil and this morning I saw that someone dipped the stems in chocolate, which I think is very clever. Tonight someone else mentioned using Royal Icing. I just think of lots of people handling things in stores, etc. so my question is do you prep the flower somehow first before using them? Will boiling them work? I chose to use artificial flowers to make life easier, because I haven’t perfected frosting roses and usually drop them when trying to add them to the cake, but this process is still causing me stress and anxiety. Thank you!
It’s wonderful you care so much about your clients! I just used to wrap the stems in plastic wrap, after washing what I could with soap and water. The chocolate and royal icing ideas are great, though likely to cause you more work, and less profit. You could also try to use the flower picks that are used with real flowers if you’re worried about the stems that much, but cleaning and wrapping in plastic, or foil like your mom said work just fine. Good luck!
How many cups of buttercream icing do you need to ice and fill a wedding cake this size ? Also can you use clear vanilla to keep the icing more white? Thanks so much
Yes you can use clear vanilla but you’re still going to have a hint of colour from the butter. All of those answers are in the 3 part series, so just have a read through to find out.
Thank you so much for these videos. I have to make a wedding cake for a friends wedding and I was terrified. You made it look like I could do it. You made it look simple and straight foward.
You will have a great time doing it! Good luck!