2 Guys and a Wedding cake...

I cant believe it's all over. It hasn't even been a month since I met Abigail Klopper at Canal Walk when she referred me to doing the wedding cake for the 2 Guys and a wedding campaign for Heart 104.9fm. It has been crazy from the first meeting trying to get everything organised. I had to come up with a design that was brand worthy as well as suitable for a grand public wedding. The request was for cupcakes and the colours used to be black, white and red. The number of guests would be at about 250.

So I pondered, and finally decided on a design for the cake stand and also on the flavours to use for the cupcakes and the tier that the "groom & groom" would slice on the day. Let me first show you the initial design elements to the cake stand. I was under guidance by my eldest brother Ross Southern as he is a carpentry genius. He not only supplied the tools for me to hand-make this monstrosity of a design but the technical input needed to put it all together...

After marking out the circle boards for the cupcake stand I tackled them with a jigsaw, there is something quite therapeutic about using power tools :)

The four tiers, each with a hole in
the center, are fed over an erected
PVC pipe and separated by 3 pieces
of PVC pipe of a larger thickness to
divide the tiers

The questions marks which make up
the Logo for the wedding show I
traced by blowing up an image of the
logo and placing onto an overhead
projector (remember those old things
we used to use at school?) and traced
the image onto large paper. I then cut
them out of the same wood used for
the boards.

This 3 way question mark makes up

the fifth and final tier that the cake

will be made up of. It will be attached 

to the other half of the board with a 

PVC pipe attached to it and fed through 

the center of the Cupcake boards, as you can see to your right. The polystyrene ball in the center makes up the dot for the question marks.

So now the baking began and I started from the top down. For the top tier, to be cut by the couple, I made an Amaretto and cocoa fruitcake. For that extra hazelnut taste I spread the cake with Nutella and then covered it in marzipan and fondant icing.

Cupcake time!!! Here are the flavours that the wedding party would be tasting on the day...

1. Red velvet cupcakes with Orange cream cheese frosting
2. Dark Chocolate and coffee cupcakes with triple chocolate ganache
3. Coconut, white chocolate & cardamom  cupcakes with royal icing & toasted coconut

As I had limited space and time in which to organize the baking of these cupcakes I had to think carefully. A friend of mine, Jessamie Jardim, makes the most amazing red velvet and as she refused to give up her recipe I asked if she would bake me 70 of her delicious sponges to use for my creation.

As I couldn't bake 140 cupcakes in my brothers kitchen I had to source and industrial sized kitchen to aid me in my strife. I asked the guys at the famous Compass Bakery for the use of their ovens and after an initial reluctance they offered me the use of one of their kitchens as a 1 off favour to which I am still in debt. Thank you so much to everyone at Compass for all of your help in lending me your facilities!!!



So now I had 210 cupcakes to ice on a Friday afternoon, roughly 18 hours prior to due delivery time. I got cracking in my brothers small yet equipped kitchen. To cut a long story short, I finished the last one at 4am on Saturday morning :)

The last thing I had to do was put together the 2
grooms that would stand on the top tier of the cake,
sculpted out of fondant, held together with florist
wire I had to dress these grooms in tuxes and having
them looking sharp. Easier said than done when you
have to make the clothes yourself :)

Well, here goes guys I hope you like:

 

I know the photos aren't the greatest quality, its only a phone camera after all but I will post the photos from the photographer as soon as they are all done, for now, here are some previews:

Either way I hope that you have enjoyed reading about this as much as I enjoyed making it, and wish you were all there to taste :)