surf's up, wedding cake

(1 rating)
Recipe by
Dana Hayden, M.Ed.
Poulsbo, WA

The bride was Cindy and her favorite flavors are chocolate and orange so this is heavy on those two flavors. I made several tasting cakes before the actual cake, this helped decide flavors, honed my techniques and also built up my confidence. Thanks to my two sons, Hank and Sam, for their help on it. Have been decorating since I was 15, now at 51 it was fun to do my first wedding cake!

(1 rating)
yield 115 people
prep time 20 Hr
cook time 3 Hr

Ingredients For surf's up, wedding cake

  • 8 box
    duff's deep chocolate cake mix
  • 12 c
    buttercream frosting
  • 3 c
    chocolate orange lindt ganache
  • 1 box
    red fondant (24 oz.)
  • 1 box box
    yellow, orange, purple, neon colors fondant (24 oz)

How To Make surf's up, wedding cake

  • 1
    Using a 14 inch by 3 inch high cake pan bake one. Using a 10 inch by 3 inch high cake pan bake one. Using a 6 inch by 3 inch high cake pan bake one. This will take between 14 and 16 cups of cake batter.
  • 2
    Ganache, bring 1 cup whipping cream to a soft boil over medium heat. Take off the heat and pour over two cut up Lindt orange dark chocolate bars and two tablespoons of cubed butter. Stir until smooth, refrigerate 30 minutes.
  • 3
    Buttercream, for each four cups of icing use two packages of C and H pure cane sugar, 1/4 cup orange juice, two teaspoons orange zest, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 4 oz. of cream cheese to cut the sweetness. You will need three to four batches of the buttercream.
  • 4
    Cut each cooled layer in half. Spread a thin layer of the ganache between the layers of each tier.
  • 5
    For this step, frosting the cake and stacking it, I am giving my favorite link. After a great deal of research this was the most informational and concise you tube video. Thank you to Edna De la Cruz, from Design Me a Cake, for posting on You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvaCSW78ybc
  • 6
    Instead of the cardboard tubes that she used in the video I used bubble tea straws and they worked well. We drove our cake to a wedding 20 minutes away and did not have any problems will slipping tiers.
  • 7
    Now take the embellishments and apply them to the cake. Do this as soon to leaving your house as possible because the fondant can absorb the butter cream frosting. We applied the dried fondant flowers-make those several days ahead so they have time to air dry. The ribbons were cut and applied that morning before we left. It was a casual summer garden wedding with a Hawaiian them so I put the entire cake on my son's boogie board. To save time I used the colored fondant. The flowers and ribbons are from the Wilton neon colored box of four fondants. This cake used two boxes.
  • 8
    A tip: Once the ganached tiers are cold do a crumb coat using thinned out icing, and then refrigerate tiers, then do another thin coating of icing and refrigerate and finally a third thin coat will cover even a deep chocolate cake like this one.
  • 9
    This was the first wedding cake I have done after many years of making birthday and occasion cakes. It is a very rewarding experience to see the friends and relative enjoying something I had created. You could also use this cake at a garden party or children's birthday party. For cutting directions Wilton has an excellent page on the different sizes of cakes. Our slices were 2 inches by 1 inch by four inches high and it can fee over 100 people easily. We removed the top tier so Cindy and Em could enjoy it out of the freezer on their one year anniversary.
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