Step by Step Guide to Baking and Decorating a Wedding Cake

Start off by making sure you've read Getting Started on Making and Decorating a Wedding Cake, which includes a list of the tools you'll need, the wedding cake recipe I use here, and other helpful hints.

Step 1: About two days before the wedding, bake the wedding cakes. Let the cakes cool for 30 minutes, then run a knife around the inside of the pan, turn pan upside down and slide cakes out. They will still be slightly warm. After the cakes completely cool, then cover in foil until ready to assemble.

When ready, take the largest of the 3 tiers, and with a serated knife cut into 3 equal layers. This seems tricky, but go slowly & you shouldn't have a problem. If you are not using a thick filling, such as the raspberries, preserves, and icing that I use, you may wish to level out each layer using a cake leveler.

Please note: This cake makes a three-tiered cake, each tier containing three layers. To avoid confusion, I will refer to each of the three parts of the totally assembled cake as a tier, and to each horizontal slice of those tiers as a layer.