Exactly when do I need to arrange myself a cake maker? Some guides will tell you that 6-9 months is enough to book your wedding cake… now, this might be okay to try if you are marrying ‘out of season’* or mid-week but you need to contact your wedding cake maker asap as every day the diary’s a-fillin’.

(*nb: every season is wedding season if you’re a sought-after cake maker ;o))

Diary Alert- If you have chosen May – October, Bank Holidays or somewhere the around school holidays you may find that those dates have been booked already, even well in advance (some of the more sought after cake creators can find themselves booking 18 months to 2 years ahead!)

So in order to clear up a bit of cake Q&A I’ve prepped a little guide to those newly engaged or looking to mop up wed-min pertaining to an as yet un-ordered wedding cake.

Image:  ‘and so the adventure begins’ topper  – Most Unusual Wedding Fair – Godwick Barn

When Should I Book My Wedding Cake?  As soon as possible in all honesty, it’s not a clever sales ploy it’s just bald reality. I’ll break it down:

Time & Space: Most of us artisan bakers will be self-employed with families to take care of and we are working from home. In my case I am very fortunate to have a second kitchen from which  to work from, but there are only so many orders we can ever take. Yours could be one if we know about it in time and we can create space in a busy kitchen for you.

‘Sorry I’m Full’: Not of cake – yet… I have met beautiful folks with fantastic ideas at some great wedding fairs. When we meet and talk, I can email you, give you a quote and follow-up. If you don’t come back to me, I don’t know that you would like me to bake for you.

I had a real-life scenario a couple of years back when I met a bride-to-be at a show, we talked, I quoted, we corresponded then lost contact.  I received a call 10 days before the wedding from the B2B asking ‘what time would I be there on the day to set up?’ She’d assumed that because I’d been in contact with her that I’d just take care of it all and had the wedding cake booked in.

Luckily for her I had some availability and with planning and experience was able to work it. Good times.  Had I already been totally crammed with cake that weekend she would have been looking for cake-maker REALLY short notice. Bad times.

Design Meeting: I love a design meeting, I really think this is a massive go-for-it opportunity when choosing your baker. I love getting together with couples (and sometimes meeting the entourage), discovering their personality and essence, then working with the couple to create something really ‘them’.  I find a lot of the smaller details you wouldn’t think to ask by email get sorted out quickly at a meeting, more than if we just corresponded just by email.  Facetime or Messenger videocalls work just as well, especially as some of my clients are out of the UK at time of booking their wedding cake. Saying that we’ve had a couple from Dubai in the kitchen recently – I don’t think I was their primary destination but we’ve nailed their UK wedding cake for next year!

Dietary Stuff: I’m a confident baker with gluten-free and dairy free but these are definitely requirements we like to bake for with time on our side to ensure no cross contamination.  I have ‘ingredient ommiters’ in my family and friend circle and I’m proud to say they don’t get side-lined with a shop bought or *gasp/horror* get left out of the wedding cake fun entirely.

Do you use sugar flowers or fresh? I am a fresh girl every time. Every time. Sugar flowers are beautiful and a truly skilful thing to make. I just prefer the velvet of a fresh rose petal, the newness of rose buds and lisianthus heads, the smell of rosemary and lavender and other botanicals.  For me, you can’t beat the heavenly gloss of a verdant palm, the tiny budding olives on a cut sprig or the little yellow pompom heads of crespidia.

If God made it that good, who am I to think I can make it better?  I can assure you that I carefully clean, wire and tape all of my flowers, I work with your florist to ensure we have synergy with your bouquet and buttonholes and bring it all together beautifully.

Image Big Phat Photos  Florist Flower30

Too Late: also known as ‘Not enough time to tweak’: If we have your design in early enough, we can accommodate changes to your order. We can nip it here and there or add in special touches or personalise things for you. If we get an order to later it all feels a bit generic and rushed, we like to give a little pizzazz and think outside the box for you every now and then.

One I pizzazzed earlier – venue The Bank House Hotel

Adapting your initial design: All the wedding cakes I create are bespoke. Once you have firmed up your booking, you have a written copy of what I am going to provide for your wedding day.  At this stage you will often get back to me with requests to tweak, adapt, add, remove. On booking your wedding cake well ahead of time, you allow yourself plenty of time for the design to evolve until it really is perfect. Sometimes it takes 2 iterations, sometimes a few more….

Adapting design on site The Fire Pit Camp  image Ali Dover   Florist Jo Flowers

Flavours: You can have a different flavour for each tier for sure. We don’t have a list per se as our wedding cake combinations are individual.  Some of our most popular flavours are lemon meringue and lemon curd, salted caramel, chocolate orange, gingerbread and cream-cheese buttercream, chocolate and raspberry, orange and almond, Victoria always does a turn too. You can recommend a bake you love and we can create just for you. Buns of Fun Bakery has been in business for 9 years, there’s not many things we haven’t put in our cake-hole!

Tasting: Yes, it’s all tasting great here, would you like some?  I hold consultation days or design meetings, which ever you like the sound of throughout the year. Look out for these on FB and IG as the slots go quickly. These are one-hour slots here in our kitchen in North Norfolk, we provide tea, coffee and a cake samples box, magazines and goodies to take away. In that valuable hour we can design and dress your cake, fine tuning as we go.  I only bake freshly (no defrosted slices here!) for these events so if you miss these wonderous dates then I can do other days which aren’t as elaborate but we still get the cake design nailed!  I bake only for the design meetings as you would only get fresh cake from Buns of Fun Bakery for your wedding cake and not something from the freezer. Brr. No cold shoulder here.

Do you deliver? Yes, I have a mileage calculator for delivery so once we have your cakes destination for the Big Day, we can quote for you. I also bill for time to set up for which allow an hour on site to  locate your cake table, transport cakes from car to table, set up the tiers and stand, ‘frame the piece’ (more on that below) and handing over to chef or wedding coordinator. I’ve been known to help set up tables and iron table runners on my last delivery if I have time too.

Real wedding – Image Rob Dodsworth – Venue Hautbois Hall

Do you have stand rental? I have stand rental and I have stands that I sell, loads of options for you and we can help you think thorough a few fresh and original ideas too. I can help source stands or toppers through a number of fabulous makers I’ve had the pleasure of working with if you want something ‘you’.

Getting ahead of price hikes: Now that just sound plain scary like we’ve going to add masses to orders and penalise you if you’re not booking with us. No, no, no nothing like it. We order and schedule waaay ahead of your date and if we know there are bargains and discounts to be had we can make that work in your favour. I work with some specialist suppliers for some the smaller things and they are tricky to price but with a heads up I can make it work in your favour.

And saving the best until last:

What makes your cake maker unique?  Ooh-ooh! I can answer this one!!

1. I hand draw your cake and label it with flavours and fillings for your guests to salivate over, you get to keep this as a little keepsake. I know of brides wanting the dimensions so they can buy a frame. Cute.
2. The other unique-y thing I do is to create a ‘space’ for your wedding cake to inhabit.  Using elements of the cake decoration, confectionery and floristry we carefully trail out either side of the base of your cake to keep the eye moving around the cake area. After all, if you’ve paid a decent dollar for your cake you want to have folks really pay it attention.

What to do now: As soon as you have a date and venue confirmed we should talk cake.  We’ll arrange a date and time to meet and design for you.  Firming up your booking well in advance doesn’t mean that you have to pay for your cake in full at the time of booking.  Cake makers each have their own terms and conditions around this. I ask for a deposit only, with the balance payable 6 weeks before the Big Day. I offer a “save the date” option as a deposit of £100. This allows you to book your date, giving you plenty of time to sort out the minutiae of the cake flavours and design.

I am currently (at time of writing in Jan ‘19) booking into July 2020 – I love my work and I hope to see your ideas and get talking to you soon.

Enjoy it all xx

Emma

The post THE Wedding Cake – When Do I Book One? appeared first on EDIBLE ART BY BUNS OF FUN BAKERY.

Nestled in the Norfolk broads Hautbois Hall is a stunning Tudor Manor house dating from 1555. This was my first visit here and I return in 2019 and beyond (yes, already booking into SS2019/20)

While Emily & Tom were getting spliced and I was dressing the cake for the after party. Our 3 tier wedding cake comprised a Chocolate Guinness Cake with cream cheese frosting, caramel cake,  salted caramel frosting and home made Cornish salted dulce du leche, along with our all time favourite lemon meringue and scratch cooked lemon-curd. Finally, decorated and completed with chocolate sails, Aunties blooms and our hand drawn, bespoke personalised sketch as a standard.  Once E &T were spliced it was time for the wedding cake to get sliced.

I love it when a family member gets involved in something for our couples wedding day. If Aunt Fanny is a dab hand at flowers and knows her daffs from her dandelions I’m all up for it, I’ll work with whatever I’m given.  Luckily Emilys Aunt was the bee’s knees at scooping some fantastic colours and textures for Emily & Toms wedding cake blooms.

(N.B: We have a raft of contacts for very talented florists to hand if it’s all going to get too much for Aunt Fan’ and her kitchen scissors.)

Venue: Hautbois Hall

Photographer: Rob Dodsworth

Flowers: Emilys aunt (Disclosure: Aunt Fanny is not her real name..)

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Sometimes you might want to bake with the children to feel that warm made-at-home glow and that nurturing mother hen supervision clucking about the place. In reality it’s a messy, batter flinging experience that leaves you bereft of a calm and placid demeanour with the added pain of a whopping clear up job (if your children are young like mine – particularly one, naming no names..)

During a half term and holidays it can be a trick to keep small folks occupied and not digging up the lawn, throwing things in the pond, tipping cupboard contents out, drawing on walls (believe me the 3 year old is BUSY!) we also have the addition of ‘The Monster’ at some point. . .PMT by another name and a most unwelcome guest. This rampaging guest once a month tiptoes through the calendar, inert at times; blowing dandelion clocks and other features of whimsy, and then wakes up one day with hob nailed boots on, smashing joy and delivering misery in a large dose.

For example, oh let’s say we’re returning from a lovely green and leafy wedding photo shoot in the middle of the beautiful North Norfolk countryside and decide to detour on the way home to a nearby a nearby craft centre. It is a ‘Monster’ day – so far she’s calm… The One Who Shall Not Be Named (the small one) fixes his gaze upon the many items available and decides to fling, with aplomb, the lovely swirly stand that hold hundreds of colourful tapestry silks. A rainbow of cottony colours filled the air briefly then dashed to the floor. ‘Monster’ kept calm but boy did we shift out of there once in high gear after clearing up and apologies were undertaken by one small sheepish person.

Driving home.          Monster awake.          Not good.            Short sentences.

CCCCOOOOOKKKKIIIEEEEEEEE.

My only thought.

And PMT Cookie came into this world at about 2.30pm that day.

Giant PMT Cookie

This is how it shakes down people, and if you don’t  want the guilt factor of one GIANT one… serves 36 for those regular friendly days with friends and the wee ones..

15 minutes to prepare and 25 minutes to cook The Big One, or until golden

or  15 minutes to prepare and 14 minutes to cook for smaller cookies in batches of 8 per tray

Freezable (forward planning for next month…)

Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 Sticks) 225g Unsalted Butter Softened
• 3/4 cups Golden Brown Sugar
• 3/4 cups Sugar
• 2 whole Eggs
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
• 2 cups self raising flour
• 1-1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 cup (rounded) Horlicks
• 175g bag Milk Chocolate Chips

Preheat the oven to 175°C.

Start with creaming the calories, beat the butter, white & brown sugar until smooth. This will help with legally punishing something…

De-stress by whisking the egg then splosh in the vanillla extract with a dash of Devil-may-care-attitude.

Combine the flour and Horlicks  separately from the mixture. (other malted drinks may be available)

Stir into the creamed mixture and then fold in the chocolate chips. ‘One for me, one for the bowl’…

Now here’s cheeky for you – either use the PMT baking method or skip to regular normal function folks aka the regular method below:

PMT method: Drop the mixture onto a baking sheet, slap it around and smear it about until it’s at the edges, you don’t want to miss out on these calories!

Cook for 15-20 minutes in preheated oven then remove from the oven and allow the Giant Cookie to chill.

I know you want to Cookie Monster it right about now but patience is a virtue, don’t sulk – you will burn yourself. I selflessly blistered the roof of my mouth with molten chocolate drops just for you.

FEED Cookieee Monster

Nom Nom Nommm

N.B: This the size of 1/3 of the mixture and it’s a whole baking tray size

( 14″ x 11″ or 36cm x 28cm)

Or the regular method from here on in:

Using two teaspoons drop the mixture onto a baking sheet and press down slightly to flatten.

Place on a greased baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Isn’t that nice.

Cook for 10-14 minutes in preheated oven.

Remove the cookies from the oven and allow to cool for 5 mins before placing them on a wire rack to cool completely.

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Easter is upon us once more and so are the Easter holidays for the mini family members. For us it’s a visit to Bonny Wee Scotch and days of activity, eating and adventures.   So School’s Out and maybe you’ll have the folks over or just hear the immortal sing-song words from the hungry little people ‘I want something to eaaat!’   Fear not, I shall help you become Mistress of the Baking Tins, I have a rescue plan. If you are a pro or just giving it a bash I’ve a couple of recipes to keep the wee folk occupied – and they’re a *bit* healthy too..

 Simnel Brownies* adapted from Baking mad.com

Totally girdle busting chocolate richness, fudgy and rich it’s not one for the faint hearted! Please note this recipe has magical properties in that it has the ability to shrink clothes if enough is consumed.

Ingredients:

100g Dried mixed fruits (I used our favourite Holland & Barrett Luxury Berry Mix which is amazing – an interesting collection of raisins, dried blueberries, golden-berries (dried physallis), golden raisins and dried cranberries. If this is a bit off the wall then go for the original or regular dried fruit.

1tsp Cinnamon

½tsp Nutmeg                                                  ½tsp Sea salt

50ml Brandy or orange juice                          110g Butter (unsalted)

260g Unrefined light muscovado sugar         75g Golden syrup

300g Dark chocolate                                       4 Egg(s) (free range) medium

80g Plain white flour                                      75g Marzipan ready to roll

Pre heat the oven to 190°C (170°C fan, 325°F, gas mark 3).

Soak the fruits in the brandy or orange juice with the spices and salt over night, although I have cheated by juicing and soaking the fruit while all the other bits are going on.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter, light muscovado and syrup until smooth and glossy.

Remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate, mixing until all the chocolate has fully melted.

Whisk the eggs lightly and add to the chocolate mixture stirring well. Now add the soaked fruits and flour – I know, it looks a very small amount of flour but all is as it should be – trust me

Pour in to a parchment paper lined baking tin 8” square.

My favourite bit – hand roll the all the marzipan into smallish balls and if the small folk are helping this is their moment! Bombs away and drop them over the top of the brownie then finish with the dark muscovado sprinkled over the top.

Bake for 20 -30 minutes until it’s just beginning to set but is still soft in the middle.

Remove from the oven, cool completely then chill in the fridge overnight. (Again we had a moment of Cheatsville and cut into them the same day so tantalising was their aroma)

Turn out of the tin and cut into squares. Serve at room temperature. These amazing brownies will keep for 7 days in an airtight container.

Sticky Bunny Cake from BBC Good Food

Prep: 30 mins Cook: 1 hr, 10 mins plus cooling  – Makes 10-12 slices

A sticky and delicious sponge with an unusual decorative candied carrot topping – enjoy a slice with a cup of coffee or tea

 Ingredients:

200g light soft brown sugar                         150ml light rapeseed oil

100g natural yogurt                                        3 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract                                        300g self-raising flour

zest 3 oranges, juice of 2 (save juice of last orange for the carrots, below)

1 tbsp mixed spice                                         1 tsp ground cinnamon

250g coarsely grated carrots                       crème fraîche, to serve (optional)

 For the caramelised carrots

225-250g small or baby carrots, peeled and halved lengthways

juice of 1 orange (from cake ingredients)     25g butter

4 tbsp light soft brown sugar

Put the carrots in a saucepan so they can sit in just about a single layer. Add the orange juice, butter, sugar and enough water to cover the tops of the carrots by just 1cm. Bring it to the boil, then cook until the water has almost evaporated and the carrots are left in a sticky syrup – you may want to reduce the heat if the liquid looks more syrupy, and go a little slower at the end so the carrots don’t catch. These can be made up to 1 day ahead.

Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Grease a 23cm cake tin. Lift the candied carrots from the pan and syrup, and arrange in the base of the tin, cut-side down. Keep the pan and syrup for later.

Whisk together the 200g brown sugar, the oil, yogurt, eggs, vanilla and zest from 2 oranges. Mix the flour, mixed spice, cinnamon and grated carrot in a big mixing bowl. Stir in the whisked mixture until smooth, then spoon over the carrots in the tin – now’s the time to add your rabbit.

Too cute!  Don’t do it, instead bake for 45-50 mins until a skewer poked in comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 20 mins.

Meanwhile, add the orange juice to the syrup pan with the 3 tbsp brown sugar. Simmer together until slightly reduced, then stir in the remaining zest.

Turn the cake out onto a plate and spoon over the syrup. Eat just warm or at room temperature with more yogurt or crème fraîche.

I hope you have a lovely Easter break what ever you get up to.  Buns of Fun is away until 13th April but you can still email me on bunsoffun@hotmail.co.uk

x Emma

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