I received my undergraduate degree from Millersville University which is smack dab in the middle of Lancaster County. If you haven't been to Lancaster then I would definitely recommend it! It has a natural beauty that is hard to describe. When Danielle contacted me in October about possibly doing her wedding cake at Lauxmont Farms in Lancaster, I had a few thoughts go through my head. The first, "Wow, Lancaster County in the beginning of May is going to be GORGEOUS!" And then, "Oh my god, how the hell am I supposed to get a wedding cake down there in one piece?!" Lancaster is approximately 3 hours from my basement kitchen and if you are from PA then you know how terrible our roads are after the winter season. I've delivered a cake down to Lancaster once before but it wasn't a stacked cake and it was covered in fondant. Needless to say... I was nervous!!!
Danielle and Jonathan had a color scheme of white, light pinks, and navy. It isn't your typical color scheme but it looked stunning, one of my favorites actually. We played around with a few ideas for the cake but settled on the design below. A white buttercream cake with navy ribbons and a full cascade of gum paste peonies, hydrangeas, and filler flowers.
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| Original cake sketch |
I made all of the flowers by hand and I was actually going to do a tutorial for the peonies until I realized how much work actually goes into each flower... I decided my time was better spent working on the flowers themselves than the tutorial. Maybe next time! I used petal dust and luster dust to accent the flowers and leaves as well.
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| One of the twelve peonies that I made for the flower cascade. It was as big as my hand! |
When it finally came time to transport the cake, I knew that the safest way was going to be unstacked. I had to wrap each tier individually, pack it into a cake box, and then surround that with freezer packs. I also had to endure 3.5 hours (thanks to Central PA traffic, I had to sit in a traffic jam for almost 45 minutes) of blasting the AC. When I finally got to Lancaster I could barely feel my legs or fingers from being so cold, but the tiers made it through the trip without a single issue (thank god!!). I was able to get the cake stacked Friday night and ready for the flowers to be applied the following morning.
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| The cakes before the trip to Lancaster! |
Arranging the flowers took almost 3 hours. I never have an exact idea of what a flower cascade is going to look like, just a certain amount of main flowers that I intend to use. All in all, I ended up using 12 peonies and a ridiculous amount of hydrangeas and fillers. There was a few casualties with gum paste leaves and a few hydrangeas but the peonies held up like champs.
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| Half-way there!! |
The cake was delivered to the Rotunda venue and it was breathtaking. Seriously... I was speechless.
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| The view of the Susquehanna River from the Rotunda |
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| I cannot get over how beautiful this venue was and my cake paled in comparison! |
I took so many pictures because I wanted to capture the beauty of everything but pictures didn't do it justice. The cake made it to the venue without any issue and as soon as I started driving away, a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders... until I realized that I had a big ol' wedding coming up the following weekend. Such is the life of a busy baker.
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| A close up of the cascade |
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| At the venue.. before I realized I forgot to put the cake onto the cake stand! |
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| The finished product! Cake stand and all!! |
I'm so happy with how beautiful this cake turned out, and I hope that Danielle and Jonathan were as please with it as I was. I wish them nothing but happiness in the years to come!
Thanks for reading and the continued support!
Always,
Sarah
