Wedding cake? No problem!

Wedding cakes are considered amongst the most difficult, and time consuming types of cakes you can make. Most of the time, they can work out to be pretty costly, too.

But, these days, it seems that more and more people are sidestepping the pricetag of enlisting a professional and making their wedding cakes themselves. For my colleague, and self-taught cake decorating extraordinaire, Mandy, that was definitely the case.

This cake took a total of two months around work and other commitments. It seems you don’t need to be a professional cake decorator to craft an edible masterpiece like this one. There’s hope for the rest of us yet!

The cake is a fruit cake, chosen as they keep for longer. This was a particular drawcard for Mandy as she had to transport the cake by hand up a mountain in Austria just a few days before the wedding.

Whilst you’ll need some of your own creative flair and dexterity to come up with and properly manipulate different types of icing and sugar pastes, be sure to use firm, stronger ones to ensure your creations stick. For example, this cake is covered in marzipan, and then sugar paste icing , whilst the figures are made from flower paste: an even stronger type of icing that is used specifically to craft flowers.

Marrying into a Chinese family, Mandy also included the Chinese symbol for “double happiness” beneath the mice. To slice icing into shapes, you’ll first need to roll it out onto a flat surface. You’ll also need a steady hand and a flat-edged, sharp knife. You can press lightly over the icing surface to trace the shape first before you take the plunge and cut it up. For someone with no professional cake decorating training or experience, this result is incredibly encouraging for all the baking amateurs out there looking to bring their creative, delicious ideas to fruition.