My First Wedding Cake

Yesterday I delivered my very first wedding cake! I made it for my friend and colleague Courtney, who was hosting a big reception at her home for her friends and family. She and her new husband Ralph were married in Tuscany, Italy last month and the reception was a way for them to celebrate with everyone that wasn't able to attend the ceremony abroad.
Since the wedding took place in Tuscany, Courtney continued the whole Italian theme in her reception and especially in the cake which was filled with a cannolli cream. She served traditional wood fired pizza, salads, a great assortment of Italian cheeses and cured meats, and had the vino flowing! I was honored to be included in such a glorious event. Congratulations Courtney and Ralph!

Here's are a few bits of trivia about this cake:

The cake was a traditional white cake flavored with lemon zest and vanilla. It was filled with a thin layer of lemon curd, followed by a thick layer of simple sweet vanilla cannolli cream. The cake was frosted in a traditional Italian meringue buttercream also flavored with vanilla.

I used 18 lemons to make the cake and the lemon curd. The bottom tier is 16 inches round, followed by a 10 inch square, and topped with a 6 inch square. Each tier is two layers of cake with one layer of filling.

I made 36 cups of batter! The 16x2 inch cake required 14 cups of batter for each layer. I didn't have a 10 or 6 inch square cake pan so I baked two half-sheet pan (12x18x2) and cut the 10 and 6 inch layers from them. I had a bit of cake left over (not a huge amount, but enough to share with my friends and family).

According to most sources, a cake of this size would yield about 130 servings, but small 1 by 2 inch slices. The top tier served 6, the middle, 40, and 80 for the bottom tier. I wanted to make sure everyone could get cake and a good sized piece at that. The top tier was going to be saved for the bride and groom to enjoy later. I used 7 dozen eggs to make the cake and the buttercream. The cake required 40 egg whites alone and the butter cream took another 40! The lemon curd only used 4 of the remaining egg yolks plus another 4 whole eggs. That's a lot of unused egg yolks!

I used about 10 and a half pounds of butter to make the cake, lemon curd, and the butter cream. Each cake layer required a pound and a half of butter and the buttercream made great use of the other 7 pounds. The rest of the butter was used to butter the pans and make the lemon curd. To make the cannolli cream, I used 8 pounds of whole milk ricotta cheese and two vanilla beans.

Sugar... yeah, there was sugar in this cake. And a lot of it. 17 pounds of it! 8 pounds of sugar went into the cake, 4 pounds went into the buttercream, 1 went into the lemon curd, half a pound went into the simple syrup, and 4 went into the cannolli cream. Although the cannolli was almost all powdered sugar.