Ok, so I make cake. Lots of cake. I make 2-6 wedding cakes per weekend durring the summer, and countless other (simple birthday, etc.) cakes durring the week at the bakery I work for. So it's not like I'm lacking experience, but...

I'm suposed to make a wedding cake for 150 in less than 2 weeks.... Away from home and the bakery. On a tiny island, with extremely limited resources, AND it's supposed to be covered with sea life. Not just white chocolate shell and some coral. No, this cake needs orca, porpoise, rock fish, flounder, eel grass, bull kelp, and crabs. And I don't even know if there will be a kitchenAid mixer avaliable for me to use! ACK!!! How the heck am I supposed to make frosting for this cake without a mixer?

I'm planning on making gumpaste (or 50/50) sea life on the train while I'm traveling (it's a 17 hours train trip), and just hand drawing what I don't finish molding. I'm considering using green fruit roll-ups for the eel grass and/or kelp. Normaly I would balk at using that nasty stuff, but I think that maybe the bright color and translucency will make it look more realisitic, AND will be less work for me... hopefully!

Oh, and refridgeration is... sketchy... so I need a filling that doesn't need to be refridgerated. Problem is, ALL of the fillings I regularly make are whiped cream based MUST be refridgereated.

I still haven't even decided what size cakes to make. I'm thinking 6", 10", 14" plus maybe a sheet cake on the side if I need more servings? Anyone know off the top of their head how many servings a 6,10,14 will give?

Mostly I think I just needed to vent a little, but if anyone has any great filling ideas I would LOVE to hear them! And cake serving/sizes would be great too (yeah... I should just go look them up...).

If you have been making 2-6 wedding cakes a week then you would have a rough estimate of how much servings that would give.

As for the frosting, try coating the cake with ganache. As for the filling, I really can't help with that. Why don't you bring a hand held mixer with you?

Good luck =]

Round= 128 Square=166 (estimated of course). I didn't add in sheet cake, cuz I didn't remember seeing a size.

Good Luck with this one!

Don't freak out, If your frosting doesn't need refrigeration I would make that ahead of time and get some food grade buckets from the bakery you work at, box them up and put them on the train. You're already making the gum paste on the way there, If you have time I would start now, you can also make RI ahead of time. Make a list of everything you need to bring with you and add to it when you remember somehting that isn't on the list.
As far as the filling goes, I would buy a sleave or two and take it with you if you're not sure about the regrigeration. Can't you call, email or something and find out what you have to work with? Better to be prepared instead of surprised when you get there. Maybe you won't need to lug as much with you as you think.

Good Luck!

Thanks for the replies! I know everything is going to work out fine... I really just needed to releace some stress.

When it comes to serving size, it's all a little confusing. See, the bakery I work at lists HUGE serving sizes (they say that a 6,8,10 feeds 50 and a 6,10,14 feeds 90), so I was trying to figure out NORMAL serving amounts. and for some reason I couldn't find the wilton chart online. Thanks MLand!

I can't frost the cake with ganache because it's not getting covered in fondant... though ganache could work really well for the filling on the chocolate tier! I didn't think of that because I usually only use ganache for frosting, and I prefer lighter fillings, but I'm thinking this would be a good exception. Thanks for the suggestion!

I really wish I could just bring my icing with me, but the bagage requirements are pretty stict on the train so I can't bring buckets of icing with me (dang it!). I'm still trying to find out if anyone on the island has a mix I can use... I really don't want to try and make SMBC for that much cake with a hand mixer, lol!

Thanks again for all the suggestions!

Huh. Sounds like an adventure!