For those who choose to have someone else make their wedding cake, it’s not unusual for quotes to venture well into the thousands.
So when Victorian mum (and amateur baker) Silvina Werner was asked by a friend to make her wedding cake, she wanted to do it as cheaply as possible.
And she managed to pull it off for just $57.
Using 11 cakes from Woolworths and a tub of Betty Crocker icing, plus flowers to decorate, Silvina created her friend’s dream wedding cake.
How to make Bliss Ball Cake Pops. Post continues after video.
Speaking to Mamamia, Silvina outlined exactly how she made the cake, a design that she based off a photo the bride sent her.
Ingredients:
- 11 Woolworths mud cakes.
- Vanilla Betty Crocker icing.
- Flowers to decorate.
Method:
- For the bottom tier, you need eight cakes. Squeeze two mud cakes together to make one big flat cake. Do this by lining a cake tin with glad wrap, and squashing one cake to the edges of the cake tin. Place the second cake icing down on top of the first squashed cake, and likewise squash to the edges of the cake tin. Smooth by hand and place in the freezer to hold the shape. Repeat four times, and layer each cake on top of each other.
- Stack two mud cakes as they are for the second tier.
- For the third tier cut the cake into two smaller ones.
- Use icing to stick the cakes together, and then use a spatula to spread the vanilla Betty Crocker icing (use as much as you need) to cover the cake.
- To create lines in the icing, use a knife.
Result:
Silvina explained that while she used to bake her own cakes, the Woolies cakes quicken the process.
"I'm not a professional cake decorator, I'm still learning the trade and have picked up a lot of tips from the Woolies/Coles mud cakes hacks Facebook group," she told Mamamia.
"I made the cake for a friend's wedding, she has seen the cakes I make for my girls and had the confidence in me to ask me to do her wedding cake," she added.
She told Mamamia that the cake was a hit with the guests, but that the bride was especially happy.
"I believe all the guests really liked the cake, but the most important thing was that my friend loved it as her opinion is of the most importance," she said, adding that she started taking cake making seriously after her daughters were born.
Is it appropriate to outsource the writing of your wedding vows? We discuss, on Mamamia Out Loud. Post continues after audio.
"I have been baking cakes just for special occasions for quite a while but only really became more interested to learn when I had my daughters and I wanted to make their birthday cakes. Over the last couple of years I have become increasingly interested in improving my cakes and techniques. I have been using Google and YouTube to learn how to do things better and in a more time efficient way," she said.
While Silvina enjoyed baking the wedding cake, she told Mamamia that for now she's happy making exciting cakes for her daughters.
Want more Mamamia stories? Sign up to our newsletters and get our best stories straight into your inbox.
Top Comments
If you're happy to go DIY and on the cheap, this is a nice solution. However, I'm slightly horrified at the idea of squashing two cakes together to make a larger cake - it would completely change the texture of the cake. It's also going to sink down on itself if it's made too far in advance because it hasn't had supports put in.
There's a very good reason professional bakers/decorators charge so much and that's because an expertly baked, assembled and decorated cake takes hours and a lot of skill, ingredients and equipment. If you're happy paying $50 for someone to squash some supermarket mudcakes together, go for it, but it's in no way in the same league as a properly made cake.
Great effort and lovely gesture.
No effort compared to the effort it takes to bake all the cakes she bought from the shop. She could have atleast made the icing. Even with all the pre-bought parts, she didn't even spread the icing properly. And she has the pride to give "instructions"