The Making of a Cake... part 1

7 cakes (yup, up from the original 5)... 4 days... 3 cake stands... 2 tiers... 1 awesome wedding...

These are the ingredients for one of the top tier chocolate cakes.

These are the completed lemon chiffon cakes. I think they could have spent an extra 5 minutes in the oven, but they were baked through and were very moist.

These were the parts of the butter sheet cake. I ended up making three 12"x16" sheet cakes because there was some concern there wouldn't be enough cake to go around. In the end, that ended up not being so much of problem.

So here was my baking schedule:
Tuesday: shop for ingredients... 9lbs of butter, 12lbs of sugar, 8lbs of cake flour, 2lbs of chocolate, 60 eggs, 2 bottles of vanilla, 6 lemons, 7 bananas, 1 gigantic tub of crisco, 46 cups of powdered sugar... and more!

Wednesday: before beginning to bake, desperately search for Dutch process cocoa...
1. bake lemon chiffon cakes - 3 layers
2. bake banana cakes - 2 thick layers
3. bake buttermilk cakes - 3 layers
4. bake first butter sheet cake - 1 layer
5. bake second butter sheet cake - 1 layer
... dinner with family and my cute niece...
6. bake third butter sheet cake - 1 layer
... then sleep at probably 12:30am...

Thursday: up nice and early, with lists of things to do swirling around in my brain...
7. bake flourless chocolate cake - 1 layer (this cake was the 7th unique cake to be added because we had some people at the wedding that had wheat allergies and others that had chocolate addictions)
8. bake 1st layer of the chocolate butter cake for top tier - 1 layer
9. bake chocolate domingo cake for my uncle's surprise bday party - 1 layer (this was the 8th unique cake I baked but wasn't served at the wedding)
10. bake 2nd layer of the chocolate butter cake for top tier - 1 layer
11. make lemon curd for lemon chiffon cake
... short break for Mom and I to get a pedicure...
12. make sour cream ganache for banana cake
... bridal shower for my friend Kim...
13. carmelize bananas
14. assemble and frost banana cake (called "You Crazy Monkey" cake)
... sleep around 12:30am...

Friday: up nice and early at 6:45am with more things I need to do... is this ever ending?
15. make 4 batches of spinach artichoke dip for the wedding... (this did not go into the cake)
... Kim comes over to help - she's the official sous chef/pastry assistant of wedding preparation...
16. fill some deviled eggs for the "rehersal dinner" at Ally's house tonight
16. remove berries from freezer and put some aside for the buttermilk cake, dump the rest into a pan with some water and mash and reduce to a concentrate that I can add to some buttercream for the berry filling
... Kim and I cover the boards to support the cakes in aluminum or parchment...
17. Kim sifts 32 cups of powdered sugar as I make 4 gigantic batches of vanilla buttercream frosting and also one batch of peanut butter frosting - thank goodness she came to help!!!
... Kim has to leave before I start frosting...
18. make berry buttercream by mixing in berry concentrate to some already prepared frosting
19. assemble lemon chiffon and buttermilk berry cake and start putting the crumb coat on cakes - a thin layer of frosting to hold in the crumbs when the thicker layer goes on, after a chill in the fridge
... family arrives to go over to Ally's parents' house for the rehersal dinner...

Okay... more to come later because I'm going over to the pool for some rays and relaxation...