If you noticed things were a little quiet around here lately, this post will explain why! I was on a self-imposed baking hiatus for the month of August leading up this: my friend/former co-worker Emma’s wedding cake.

Emma slid into my DMs on Instagram last December and asked if I would be willing to make a small, simple cake for her wedding in August, and I obviously agreed. We had a little consultation over FaceTime in March and I got the details: two tiers, simple styling, and a request for vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream (although by the end of the call, I convinced her and Rob to go with a salted caramel filling!). Of course I also asked a hundred logistical questions about where the wedding was and if there was a fridge on site (this is key!).

Luckily I have this here internet website where I record the details of all my baking projects, so I just consulted my post from the last wedding cake I made in 2018, and refreshed my memory on everything. I planned on using the same recipe, scaling, and measurements for a 6″ tier and an 8″ tier for Emma’s cake. I even had the leftover cake boards, dowels and transpo box saved down in my storage locker, so I didn’t even have to buy anything new except the thick/sturdy board that the cake sits on.

In May, I did a full trial run of two 6″ cakes so I could test out the salted caramel filling I wanted to use, from this post by Smitten Kitchen. One went to Emma & Rob to make sure they were happy with everything, and one was used by me for experimental purposes (LOL). I wanted to see how the caramel behaved: was it easy to slice when straight out of the fridge? did it start to ooze when left out at room temp? how about when left out on my balcony in the sun? (I didn’t actually test out that last one; I knew it would melt). I got glowing feedback from the bride and groom, and I was very happy with the caramel. There was absolutely no ooze factor at room temp, so I didn’t have to worry about it exploding out of the side of the cake or making a mess.

I pretty much just chilled out on this project until the second week of August, when I made a list of all the supplies and quantities I needed, and went to Walmart to pick everything up (I loathe Walmart, but they have good prices on baking staples like flour, butter, sugar, eggs etc.) I also made a workback schedule and mapped out my plan for baking, frosting and assembling the cake on the days leading up to the wedding. Like last time, I also secured my driver/helper for day, my friend Heather.

Everything with the cake went absolutely perfectly. I wasn’t even stressed out by the dowels! I might even go as far to say that I had a fun, relaxing day working on the cake and listening to podcasts.

On the wedding day, Heather picked us up (me and the cake), and with the AC blasting we made our way to Waterford (about an hour west of Hamilton). We laughed the whole time about the last time we delivered a wedding cake in a freak ice storm, and how easy our job was this time around. Until we got there.

As soon as I opened the car door a WAVE of heat washed over me. It was probably 40 degrees with the humidity that day. I started to sweat right away, and as quickly and carefully as possible got the cake into the little room in the barn with the fridge. Emma’s mom passed me some flowers and greenery to decorate the cake, which I did as fast as I could because like me, the cake was also starting to sweat. Heather is unflappable in a crisis (not that this was a crisis by any means), and kept me calm while we worked fast, took a quick photo (above) and got the cake in the fridge.

I got a message from Emma at 2am saying that the cake looked beautiful and everyone loved it, so I’d say that’s a success!