It is customary to end the wedding feast with tea and a sweet treat. Traditionally, the main dessert of the holiday is a large and beautiful cake. In order for the delicacy to make a positive impression and be remembered by those present at the gala banquet, its choice should be approached responsibly. First of all, it is important to make sure that there is enough dessert for all guests. If there are a lot of guests, the logical solution would be to order a three-tier cake.
Fashionable white and blue wedding cake with three tiers
Pros and cons of multi-tiered cakes
This spectacular dessert has its advantages and disadvantages :
Pros:
- a wide variety of cake layers, creams, finishing and decoration methods . Moreover, the tiers can have different tastes;
- the opportunity to highlight the style of the wedding celebration;
- allows you to feed all guests due to its large size.
Minuses:
- high cost (can cost 5 times more than a standard single-tier product);
- difficulty in calculating the required amount of dessert;
- the need to order in advance , in popular confectionery shops - several months in advance;
- risk of damage to complex structures during transportation and storage.
Important : before ordering a multi-tiered product, it is advisable to taste the proposed option/options; most reputable companies offer this service for a fee (with home delivery, pickup) or free of charge (in the office). This will allow you to choose the optimal taste.
Cakes shape
Traditionally, a multi-tiered cake is made from round cake layers, but no one forbids you to choose cakes in the form of a square, heart or pillows. Or you can even combine a circle and a square - you will get an original treat. And the cakes themselves can be placed at an angle, creating the illusion of a falling cake.
Do you want something unusual? Pay attention to the multi-tiered upside-down cake, when the cake layers are no longer from top to bottom, but vice versa. This wedding delicacy will definitely not go unnoticed by the guests! Alas, you can’t order a wedding cake of such an unusual design in any pastry shop, because creating it requires special skills.
Fixation methods
There are several options for serving and fixing the product, depending on the weight, recipe of cakes and creams (mastic, mousse, layers, etc.):
- A regular stand of the required size on which the lower tier of the dessert is placed. All subsequent layers rely on the bottom one.
- A stand with a number of holder trays corresponding to the number of tiers of the cake , fastened with a common rod or separate clamps.
- Multi-tiered stand , the design of which allows you to place the required number of portioned cakes according to the number of guests. In this serving option, the bride and groom can take their share of the dessert home.
Interesting : edible figurines decorating the top of the wedding dessert are usually left until the first wedding anniversary (if the shelf life allows it) or given to the youngest guests of the celebration.
Stands and holders for cakes can be purchased in specialized stores or rented at a pastry shop when ordering a wedding treat.
The principle of assembling a multi-tiered product (for any version of the recipe) is based on the use of a frame made from scrap materials or pastry wire.
How decor depends on the time of year
The type of dessert you choose may also depend on the time of year the wedding is being held.
- Summer. “Summer Cakes” are the brightest. They can be green, red, yellow, decorated with sunflowers or ripe berries.
- Autumn. This is a time of muted colors - yellow, brown, dark red. You can decorate the dessert with fallen marzipan leaves or autumn flowers. It will look very original if the same flowers are present in the bride’s bouquet. Autumn cake can also be made chocolate.
- Winter. Such desserts are the “coldest” - they are decorated with white, purple, and blue shades. The cake can be decorated with snowflakes.
- Spring. A time of tenderness, new hopes and the awakening of nature. Use pastel colors - pink, peach, light yellow. And for decoration - of course, flowers.
Storage and transportation conditions
Transportation of the prepared dessert is carried out either by the manufacturing company (a separate paid service) or by the wedding organizers. Professionals prefer to use special containers of suitable shape and machines with a cooled cargo compartment .
When delivering by the manufacturing company, semi- finished products are often delivered - cakes, cream, finishing elements - and assembled on a stand at the site of the celebration .
Good to know : what tools are needed to cut a cake at a wedding? How to serve a cake? What accessories to decorate with? Read here .
When transporting yourself, you need to take care of suitable-sized transport, a box and careful delivery to the place . It is better to transport the product together.
The cake in a container or box is placed on a flat, hard surface (! not on a seat!) and held motionless. Use cold generators to maintain temperature.
Storage conditions for wedding dessert depend on its composition and the manufacturer’s recommendations. The usual temperature range is 5-12 degrees Celsius, humidity no more than 50% .
Filling
We have already said that the base of a monolithic three-tier cake should consist of a dense baked sponge cake and not contain too much cream. But when it comes to the top two layers or desserts that sit on a three-tier rack, there are no restrictions. And here again there are a lot of options! Let's look at the most popular ones.
- Meringue – layers of fluffy meringue are usually placed between sponge cake layers.
- Biscuit is the most popular dough. The biscuit is very porous and holds its shape perfectly. When the young people cut the sponge cake, they will get beautiful, even pieces.
- Cream - its choice depends on the base (type of dough). This can be cream whipped with sugar, cream based on condensed milk or sour cream, as well as butter. Newlyweds often choose a cream three-tier wedding cake.
- Nuts and dried fruits - they can change the taste of your dessert, as well as give it an incomparable aroma.
Photo
Below in the photographs you will see examples of two-tier and three-tier wedding cakes.
3 tiers:
2 tiers:
4 tiers:
Price
The average cost of a multi-tiered wedding cake is 800-1700 rubles per kilogram , the cost of decoration is calculated separately (usually for each tier).
Designer decoration, original recipes and making dessert according to customer sketches/recipes add 20-50 % to the price. Reputable confectionery shops offer free tasting and/or delivery to the venue at a discount.
The number of tiers, design, recipe are discussed with the customer. The minimum weight of the cake is determined by the manufacturer (usually from two kilograms per tier).
Decorations
Wedding cake decor does not limit your imagination: coconut flakes, icing, marzipan, fondant. You can draw on the cake as if on a canvas, mold figures, install the next tier, which will differ in shape from the previous one.
In addition to edible decoration, there are artificial flowers, figures made of plastic or other material, ribbons and much more. It’s absolutely not necessary to stop at just one thing, but you shouldn’t forget about moderation either. Often, neat creamy lace looks much more elegant than a complex, heterogeneous and multi-colored composition.
Important! It is not recommended to use fresh flowers for decoration that come into contact with the edible part. Firstly, you don’t know what the buds were treated with, and secondly, one of the guests may have allergies
If you want to decorate the dessert with flowers, then use special mounts or miniature stands for them.
Glaze
The glaze is prepared simply from powdered sugar, butter and vegetable oils, milk, vanilla and a drop of blue food coloring to neutralize the yellowness.
If you wish, you can add a dye of a different color, then the glaze will not be pure white, but any other shade that you wish. If you do not spare the pigment, the glaze will acquire a rich dark color.
Usually the entire surface is filled with glaze, but you can also create all kinds of designs with inscriptions from it.
Colored chocolate
If you love chocolate, but want a bright, unusual shade, then food coloring will come to the rescue again.
Add them to regular white chocolate, previously melted in a water bath. The resulting mixture is poured over the top of the cake as a whole, like icing, or patterns are drawn and inscriptions are made.
Idea! The decorative chocolate drips around the edges look extremely appetizing.
Mastic
Mastic allows you to create a wide variety of figures - young people, rings, doves. Flowers sculpted from mastic look very delicate and elegant. Just create the desired shape, remembering how you sculpted from plasticine or polymer clay as a child. Doubt you have the necessary artistic talent? The mastic also looks good if it is applied in a continuous layer. This delicious delicacy is prepared simply - from sugar, proteins and gelatin. You can also add marshmallows melted in the microwave. This mastic looks more impressive, but is more difficult to shape.
Figures
A very cute decoration that will appeal to both children and adults. The figurines can be either classic in the form of the bride and groom, small white birds, hearts, angels, or completely unique, reflecting the hobbies and interests of the newlyweds or the theme of the celebration - a bicycle, a camping tent, a piano.
You can place one large piece in the center or make a whole composition of smaller ones. Chocolate, mastic, cream, and marzipan are used as materials for making figurines. If there is no time for jewelry work, ready-made artificial figurines are used. But if you chose the latter option - one large ready-made plastic figure or several small ones, do not forget to remove them before you start cutting the cake.
