For this section, we had to design and make a two-tier traditional buttercream wedding cake (we’ll make a modern fondant-covered one later in the program). My design started as a play on swag (the drapery-like half moon design often found on traditional cakes) so that it would take on the shape of a champagne coupe and have swiss dots inside to simulate the bubbles. I worried having to pipe perfectly shaped coupes on two layers of cake (and practiced it, with frightful results), but luckily, hit upon the idea of cutting out marzipan from a stencil fashioned out of this cup. I made the cut outs before a three day weekend, so unfortunately, they dried out a little and didn’t curve onto the cake as much as I would have liked. I made shallow incisions with a butter knife into the base of the top of the glass, brushed them with sparkly luster dust, stuck them onto the cake with gloves, and then piped the swiss dots on them. I thought about piping them randomly, but the cups seemed to small to do that. The cake layers are actually only 6″ and 8″, so they were tiny — if they had been bigger, I would have done champagne flutes with more lines of bubbles.

For the topper, we had options to use such materials as pastilliage, royal icing, fondant, and sugar. I wanted to have the effect of champagne bursting out of an opened bottle, so I opted for the sugar. We used isomalt, which is a synthetic sugar substitute that dries quite clear (of course, the topper isn’t meant for eating). We used a ration of 4:1 with water, and heated it to 340 degrees Fahrenheit. We let it cool a little before pouring it into a large piping cone made out of two layers of whole sheets of parchment. We cut the bottom with scissors and piped wearing heavy duty gloves — this wasn’t quite precision work for me. I managed to made roughly the same oval-on-oval-on-oval pattern over and over again, and when they were cool, I piped a large cirular blob of sugar, and stuck them in, holding them until they were set enough to stand. I probably should have used part regular sugar, since I was after a champagne color. I have to admit that the flash on my camera turned the topper more brown in the picture than it really was. I shaped a cork out of marzipan with brown food coloring marbled, and I planned to have it halfway up the topper, but it just looked like a random brown lump, so I left it out.

I wasn’t sure what kind of border I should use, so I just opted for a simple coil of marzipan, but if I were to do it again, I’d at least color it, flatten it, or shape it a little more to fit with the glass motif better.

I didn’t know anything about wedding cake construction before this, so it was cool to get a glimpse into how they are put together.  Before putting the second layer on, we stuck a straw into the bottom cake, and cut it level with the frosting.  We cut four more pieces of straw to the same length, and stuck them all around the center of the bottom layer.  This gives more structural support and helps to make the top layer to sit level, however slightly uneven the bottom layer may be.

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