New Year's Eve Wedding Cake

On Monday, I got a phone call from a friend of a friend asking if I'd be willing to make a last-minute wedding cake for a New Year's Eve wedding. Since it was for a small cake, I said yes. My instructions were: top tier- pistachio cake with Nutella filling bottom tier- white cake with buttercream filling frosting- white with white dots flowers- white and peridot pom poms

I've never done tiny all-over dots before, but I'm kind of in love with them. I think they'd make a really sweet baby shower cake.

Experimenting with the flowers. I couldn't find actual pom poms, so I picked up some flowers that were in the same "tight clusters of poufy petals" family in the right colors.

I really liked the all-white simplicity of this cake and now I really want to make a super-elegant all-white cake, with white roses and freesias. Summer wedding, anyone?

The final result. This was definitely the most relaxed I've ever felt about a cake, and I finished it a full three hours before I had to deliver it. I would have finished it even earlier, but I didn't have a small enough frosting tip for the dots. My husband ventured into the craft store for me and bought me two frosting tips, which I thought was pretty heroic since I'm pretty sure the craft store is the last place he wants to be, ever. I just wish I could have seen my burly husband in the cake decorating aisle, carefully picking out frosting tips while wearing his work clothes. Totally awesome.

I think I may have succeeded in getting the Swiss Buttercream as smooth as humanly possible on this cake. I had to step up my game a bit because the couple didn't want any ribbon on the cake, which I think looks lovely but also has the added benefit of concealing the seams between the tiers. It's hard to get that seam sealed nice and smooth, and I'd never actually done it before. I think there's a tool I need for that which isn't currently in my arsenal, but I managed it anyway and was really pleased with the improvement in my sculpture skills. I thought this cake would be easier than past cakes on account of how simple it was, but on a technical level it was more challenging; with no ribbon and simple flowers, I couldn't rely on distraction and floral impact to hide any of my mistakes. This was also the very first time I've delivered a cake already assembled. I'm not sure I'd attempt the same thing with a three-tiered cake, but it was awfully nice to arrive at the reception site, plop(or, you know, professionally deposit) the cake on the cake table and walk out. There was no swearing, no shaking hands piping last-minute pearls, no stashing my bowl of frosting under a table cloth, no leaving behind of valuable cake tools. A clean drop. Highly satisfying.