Basket Weave

So, a couple weeks ago I made a wedding cake using a technique I had never tried before. Surprisingly, I pulled it off.

When I didn’t hear back from one bride after multiple contacts, I had no choice but to cancel the cake order. I mean, it would’ve been silly for me to assume that I was still needed to make her cake if she wasn’t going to get back to me, and the fact that this wedding was 75 miles away, it would’ve been sillier to make the cake and go to the town and drive around looking for the wedding destination. This meant that I was able to pick up another wedding cake that was rather last minute. I won’t get into the drama that ensued with the first bride, but I do know that she did end up getting another baker to do the cake so she wasn’t cakeless on her wedding day.

Anyway, the new cake order I took the bride wanted a basket weave, which is an icing technique I’ve never gotten around to learning because, well, it really isn’t used all that much anymore. A few days before the wedding, I decided it would be a good idea to practice so I made a cake, a batch of icing, grabbed the appropriate tip and attached it to a pastry bag and started. I’m kicking myself in the ass for not attempting this earlier. Not only is this probably one of the easiest techniques I’ve ever tried, but it practically eliminates most of the stresses of icing a cake smooth. I mean, all you do is crumb coat the cake (a thin layer of icing to catch the crumbs) then start piping over it. My first try turned out much better than anticipated, so I took it to a meeting I had at church that evening for them to enjoy.

Now, the only issue I had to attend to with the actual wedding cake was transporting it 25 miles to the wedding. Fortunately weather was on my side, as it was cool and overcast. Driving along the windy roads, some of them covered in gravel, was stressful to say the least, but when I did finally arrive, the cake was perfectly fine. I didn’t have to do any touch-ups at all, and instead, because I was asked to deliver the cake four hours before the wedding (for the photographer) my only concern was how it was going to hold up until the cake cutting.

Of course, the location for the cake wasn’t ready when I got there and I was told to put it into the garage, a bit concerning as there were children roaming freely around the property. And so I showed two people involved with the wedding how to set up the cake and how easy it was to take down to move it to its final destination. Being that the wedding was still hours away, we all felt it best to not put the flowers on the cake at that time, but I heard that once it was all put together it was beautiful. Perhaps I’ll get a picture from the bride to post.