Two Wedding Cake Challenges: Fearful Confidence, If There is Such a Thing

On Saturday, I have been asked to make my first wedding cake. The request has been put in for a cake that feeds approximately 25 to 30 people. They also want it to be a rainbow cake with purple swirls in the icing. I'm both nervous and excited, but confident I can pull this off. The cake will not be as tall as the previous rainbow cake, but it has the added challenge of having a butter cream coating with a lavender fondant swirl pattern. That is what I am nervous about. I don't have extensive experience with fondant. Thankfully, this bride doesn't have high expectations or a big budget, so I'm somewhat off the hook. After searching around the net, this is a prototype of what I plan to make:

Image courtesy of Two Parts Sugar Bakery

Mine will not have flowers like those pictured above. Mine will either be flat daisies, punched cookie cutter cutter style, or fondant roses similar to the gumdrop roses I showed y'all how to make earlier this month. Around the bottom, I plan to do pearls instead of a tube of fondant. It seems like you might need some kind of fondant extruder to get that level of consistent thickness. I don't have one and if you know anything about me, I don't have the patience for that kind of detail.

My mom wants to help. It was her original idea to make the rainbow cake as this bride's wedding gift. My mother, love her to death, cannot bake. I immediately took over this crazy idea to save her from herself. Jon thinks I'm the one that needs to be saved. Why you ask? Let's talk about the second wedding cake.

The same reader who challenged me to make the panda bread has offered a new challenge: Super Mini Rainbow Wedding Cake. Three tiered with fondant icing and a cascade of roses.

*eyes glazing over*

We all know I have the concept of rainbow cake down. The real issue we are talking about here is scale. I'm just going to say up front that mine will be slightly larger than this, as I am not going to go out and buy any special equipment. As much as I love being challenged, it is getting expensive. Someone suggested I put a donations button on the page to help offset the cost. However, I'm torn because I am really super thankful for the small ad revenue I'm getting, and I feel bad asking for more. I guess I can put a donations button up, and if someone wants to help, they will. If not, they won't. Guess that's how I should look at it.

Yesterday, I spent the better half of the drive home trying to figure it out. Jon has outright said I cannot make this cake. No no no! It's a crazy idea and I am just going to get upset when it doesn't work out. I've proved him wrong before, let's see if I can do it again.

I want to tell you now how I plan to make it, but I think I am going to hold y'all in suspense. That's the trick in writing right? Keep you're readers wanting more. Let's see how that works out for me.