Due to circumstances beyond my control, I find myself needing to make my own wedding cake. I had contacted a designer in the area three months ago and she and I struck up a friendship and creative collaboration. She is a well known cake designer, she teaches technique classes and is an incredible decorator. After agreeing to make two cakes for me (wedding and groom's cake) for $300 using new techniques so she could put them in her portfolio, she has stopped responding to my attempts at communication, specifically my requests to provide a link I can use to pay her and secure the date. So here I am, 25 days away from my wedding and all the other bakers in the area are either booked up or can't work within my $300 budget. I was a cake decorator eons ago in a supermarket bakery. Just want to lay out my game plan and see if the more experienced folks here can spot any holes or things I've forgotten about.

Originally I needed a cake to feed 75 people, but I've decided to make a smaller cutting cake and order a sheet cake for the guests. The overall look I'm going for is a birch log stump. I've decided to make an 8" tier for the bottom and decorate it with green inverted ruffles since I know grass done with buttercream doesn't stick well on a vertical surface. I will dowel the bottom tier.

I'll make a barrel tier for the top out of four 6" layers. I found a video online showing how to decorate white buttercream to look like birch color and texture. The top will use varying shades of brown icing to look like tree rings. I'm going to make meringue mushrooms for decoration and order a kit off Etsy that has edible wafer paper fairy silhouette and butterflies. They'll be going up and around the tall tier. I have a wooden heart cake topper with our initials. Top tier will be doweled as well.

Questions- I don't work with fondant so the cake will be iced with American buttercream, white chocolate. I know I'll need to stiffen up the decorating icing with extra powdered sugar. Do you think I would be better off using canned decorator icing for the "grass" ruffles and tree coloring?

Should four dowels per tier be enough?

How do I transport this bad boy 45 miles to the wedding site? I've read online to use non slip mats on the floor board. I'll be buying cake boxes from Publix and for the 6" tier I'll use tape to attach the cake board to the bottom so it doesn't slide.

I've got a turn table, offset spatula, rose tip/coupler for the ruffles and piping bags. I'll need gel color for the grass, black and grey details in the birch wood, and brown shades for the tree ring at the top. Guess piping gel to attach the fairy and butterflies.

Am I forgetting anything? I'm going to do a run through this weekend, not full height.

Thanks for all the help guys!

i'll answer the delivery question -- boxes from publix is good but they might not be tall enough for this -- so prop open the tops and cover with plastic wrap if you want --

but to transport -- i'd put all that in a moving box -- you can get them anywhere -- wal-mart, office max, any storage place -- anyway -- refrigerate your cakes and then seal the boxed cakes into the corrugated cardboard moving/storage box -- you can also toss in a freezer pack -- this will hold the already cold cakes for hours -- you don't have to depend on fickle car air conditioning and protects from the light which can pull food color out of things -- not to mention melt icing --

best to you

......think I would be better off using canned decorator icing for the "grass" ruffles and tree coloring?
 NO.  And I don't understand your remark that piped 'grass' does not stick to vertical surface.  I've done it repeatedly.  It's the consistency of the icing that makes it stick.  Sounds like you were using stiff rather than medium to soft b'cream. 

......need gel color for the grass, black and grey details in the birch wood, and brown shades 

So you need green, black and brown gels.  Remember to make your colors at least the night before so they have time to 'develop'.  This is especially true for black!  In fact, one way to make black is to mix together ALL left-over colors of icing and keep in the fzr.  When you need black just mix it up (it will be an ugly color!) and add some blk gel to it.  Much easier than trying to get black starting w/white. If you HAVE to start w/white, you will need maybe 1/2 teaspoon of gel to ea cup of icing.  It's been a long time since I've made blk from white so I'm guessing here -  might need much more.  Of course grey is just a lighter version of blk.  

k8 has good suggestions for transport.  Blk especially will change color if exposed to light = it fades to blue/green/grey.

Oh, forgot to mention coloring the icing can take longer.  It can be made up to a week in advance.  That way you can add more gel if it's not the shade you want after 12-24 hrs.

And it's so sad to hear your chosen decorator does not respond to you.  At least she could say NO.

I have piped grass buttercream vertically and mine has always stuck. I never had any issues with buttercream falling off the cake. Let us know how it goes for you. I am sure everything will turn out fine. 

I agree with the grass issue, it sounds like you were using icing that wasn't soft enough. The stiffer it is the less likely it is to stick to other icing.

Also, you ordered the fairy thing from me, hee hee, I just noticed that. I can give you some tips on using that when I send it to you today. You should wait until you get to the venue to put those on, though, because refrigerating wafer paper can make it buckle and melt. Better to be on the safe side and wait.

Four dowels per tier should be fine, and if you're nervous about transporting it you might want to add a center dowel through the whole thing, but as long as the cake is cold when you move it it should be fine. I don't use center dowels and I move three-tiered cakes assembled all the time with no problems, but I move everything straight out of the fridge so that they're cold. 

Thanks everyone for the great tips! I'll go ahead and make the decorating icing a couple of days ahead so the colors set well. I'll definitely wait to add the butterflies and fairy till just before the ceremony so they don't get wet from condensation. I was dreading this since I haven't decorated in this scale in twenty years but now I'm starting to get excited.  

costume said: ..........you ordered the fairy thing from me, hee hee, I just noticed that.

I figured that when I read her story :)