Product Description

Make the cake?

Yes, you can.

If you love to bake and are willing to plan ahead, you can make a spectacular wedding cake––and you don′t have to be a pastry chef to do it! Let prominent wedding cake expert Dede Wilson guide you through every layer of the process––from choosing among flavors and styles to baking, assembling, and decorating your way to a beautiful and delicious cake. This accessible cookbook not only gets you ready for the big event, it helps you lend a truly personal touch to the celebration.

"If you want to make your own wedding cake, Dede Wilson is the perfect guide. She helps you bake with confidence every step of the way to a delicious personalized result."
––Donna Ferrari, BRIDE′S magazine

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71206 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 176 pages

From the Inside Flap
"I do not believe in cakes that are made for beauty and ceremony only. I believe they should be eaten—and enjoyed! In fact, the majority of the time my cakes are used as the dessert, as opposed to a symbolic addition."
—Dede Wilson

Let them eat cake—in fact, let them eat your cake. Whether you′re the bride, the groom, or a loving friend or family member who wants to make that special day unforgettable, public television cooking show host Dede Wilson knows that you—yes, you—can bake, frost, assemble, and decorate a spectacular, delicious, and totally unique wedding cake that won′t put your budget over the edge—even if you′ve never mastered anything more complicated than a birthday cake or two. In Wedding Cakes You Can Make, this top–tier expert reveals that all it takes to make that big–day cake is a love of baking and a willingness to plan properly and work patiently.

Whether you′re feeding 20 or 150 people, preparation begins long before you preheat the oven. In this easy–to–follow, hands–on guide, Wilson takes you through the entire process, from the drawing board to the presentation table, sharing time–tested techniques that help you turn that cake of your dreams into a delectable reality.

She helps you get started by having you write a wish list that can be honed into a framework for the ideal cake. Then it′s time to make the cake happen by working through all the practical elements that come into play, such as setting your budget (and sticking to it); choosing the essential flavors (if chocolate is the bride′s passion, don′t leave it out!); considering the wedding date (if it′s October, think about fall colors); accommodating the number of guests (small guest list equals modest–sized cake); keeping in tune with the wedding′s style or mood (beach–casual vs. black tie–formal); and getting organized (time to borrow that decorating turntable).

When it comes to execution, Wilson encourages you to use the highest–quality ingredients and equipment specific to the task, and to gain a foundation by making a six–inch sample cake—an integral step that, much like dating, allows you to try the cake on for size before making the final commitment. She shares her own favorite flavor combinations as well as those most frequently requested by bridal couples. For each of the 16 cakes, Wilson provides essential details—a timeline, thorough recipe directions, and tips. Recipes range from the lighthearted Raspberries and Cream Cake to the contemporary Nutella Cake and the sophisticated Gilded Mocha Cake. Color photographs of all the finished cakes and dozens of how–to photos give you the inspiration and know–how to bake your own special wedding cake.

As Wilson says, wedding cake flavor and design choices are infinite. In Wedding Cakes You Can Make, she helps you create your own special slice of what is possible.

From the Back Cover
Make the cake?

Yes, you can.

If you love to bake and are willing to plan ahead, you can make a spectacular wedding cake—and you don′t have to be a pastry chef to do it! Let prominent wedding cake expert Dede Wilson guide you through every layer of the process—from choosing among flavors and styles to baking, assembling, and decorating your way to a beautiful and delicious cake. This accessible cookbook not only gets you ready for the big event, it helps you lend a truly personal touch to the celebration.

"If you want to make your own wedding cake, Dede Wilson is the perfect guide. She helps you bake with confidence every step of the way to a delicious personalized result."
—Donna Ferrari, BRIDE′S magazine

About the Author
Dede Wilson is a leading baking expert who has taught wedding cake classes at Rhode Island School of Design, California Culinary Academy, Sur La Table, and elsewhere. She hosts the public television food show Seasonings with Dede Wilson, and has made numerous appearances on The View, Today, and on Live! with Regis and Kelly. She is a contributing editor, spokesperson, and writer for Bon Appétit and is the author of a number of cookbooks, including The Wedding Cake Book (Wiley) and The Baker′s Field Guide series.

Customer Reviews

disappointment
The style is very North American. Only sponge cake recipes are covered. There are very few pictures, few designs.

I made my own wedding cake using this book
I wanted a stacked sponge cake and everyone seemed to like the end result - it all got eaten. I looked at a lot of wedding cake books and this was the only one that seemed to concentrate on slightly less formal sponge cakes. It did not require sugar-craft skills and had a lot of background information that is really essential if you have never made such a large cake before, like me. She concentrates on making a delicious and attractive cake rather than icing perfection which is an approach that suited me well. If you like marzipan and crunchy icing, which I don't, this is not the book for you.

My experience of using the book was as follows:

The moistening syrup worked really well and made a big difference to the finished cake. The butter cream recipe took a long time to make and worked perfectly the first time but two later attempts had to be thrown away and I thought I followed the same method. I switched to a simple sugar and butter, butter cream recipe and this saved my sanity. I wish I had made everything in advance and frozen it.

I found it hard to manage larger cake layers and would make a smaller cake and have more spare layers behind the scenes if I did it again.

I did not follow a specific cake design from the book and seemed to be forever flicking from one page to another and recalculating the ingredients to fit the sizes I was making. I think this is a shortcoming of the book which could have been solved by a few tables with all recipes and ingredient quantities for all tin shapes and sizes - I should have put it in a spreadsheet, it would have saved a lot of time. In all other respects some trouble had been taken to make the advice and information easy to follow.

I transported my cake in separate layers in cake boxes and assembled it at the venue, I think assembling at home, as suggested for a stacked cake, would have been too heavy to carry easily and might have resulted in disaster.

My finished cake was a little lopsided and the icing was not as smooth as it could be but after adding ribbon and a lot of fresh flowers I was really pleased with the result. Using this book meant I got a cake that tasted and looked as I wanted for a lot less money than buying one, but it took a lot of time. Also, I have a kitchen aid stand mixer and it would have been very difficult to make with anything less powerful but the money saved could probably easily cover the cost of buying a good mixer.

Not Suitable for UK Brides/ Weddings
I was very dissappointed with this book. It claimed to be a step by step guide of how to make the perfect wedding cake, which it is if you want a sponge cake or another type of cake to make the week before the wedding.

There is no mention of how to make a traditional fruit wedding cake and the designs are not very helpful either.

All in all for a British bride/Wedding this book is not the one to buy for an easy guide of how to make the perfect traditional wedding cake!!