Whether you want a trendy chocolate cake or a traditional fruit cake, it's perfectly possible to make your own wedding cake. BUT 2 words of caution: think about your time and think about your budget.

The Budget: I made my own three-tiered traditional fruit cake. It was a great experience and I was really proud of the cake that I made but I can't say it really saved me money. By the time I had bought all the specialist tools needed to make the cake such as cake tins, gadgets for making sugar roses not to mention all the ingredients, I'd spent just as much as if I'd bought the cake.

The Time Factor: If you are making the traditional fruit cake, you can do this several months in advance: in fact, the cake will probably improve with age. But if you want a chocolate cake or a sponge cake, you won't be able to make it in advance. Think about what else you'll have to do in the couple of days leading up to the wedding. You might find that you simply won't have the time to make your own cake.

If you do want to make your own cake, here's an easy recipe:

Traditional fruit cake
For an 18 c.m. round cake tin: 400g currants, 250g sultanas, 150g raisins, 100g glace cherries, 70g mixed peel, 250g plain flour, 1 lemon, 3 tbsp brandy, 1 1/2 tsp ground mixed spice, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 200g soft margarine, 225g light muscovado sugar, 1 tbsp black treacle, 5 beaten eggs.

For a larger tier, simply scale up the ingredients. Add about another 100g currants per extra egg and adjust the other quantities accordingly. There's a useful table in the book but it's pretty easy to calculate yourself.

Step 1
Grease the cake tin and double line it with greaseproof paper. Preheat the over to 140 degrees C.

Step 2
Chop the cherries and wash the fruit. Grate the lemon peel and discard the rest of the lemon. Then mix the rest of the ingredients thoroughly. It sounds easy but be prepared to put in a bit of elbowgrease, especially if you're mixing larger quantities for a bigger cake!

Step 3
Bake for about three hours or until a skewer comes out clean. You must adjust the cooking times for larger cake tins and quantities. For each extra egg you add, add another half hour to bake. When cool, you can put marzipan and icing on the cake.

An alternative: the supermarket wedding cake
These days the supermarkets all sell wedding cakes, all ready for you to stack and decorate. There are three ways to stack the cakes.

1. Use the American method and simply place one cake on top of the other.

2. Use pillars. But make sure that you support the cake properly. You should cut lengths of wooden dowel (available from B&Q and other DIY stores) and push these into the cake wherever you are going to place a pillar. That way, each pillar is supported by the board of the layer below rather than by the cake itself.

3. The easy way : hire a cake stand. Your venue might be able to provide one of these.

There's some good advice on which supermarket wedding cake to choose on Cheap-wedding-success.co.uk.
And some more advice on stacking and decorating your cake at Marks and Spencers.

Another alternative
If you can't bake, but want to have a go at icing and decorating, ask a local baker if they will make your cake bases for you. Or if you can bake but you can't decorate, ask at your local sugarcraft shop if they offer an icing service.

A third alternative: enquire at your local college
Check if your local college offers sugarcraft courses. If they do, you might find a student willing to make your cake to gain experience. You might have to agree that photos of your cake are used in their portfolio and you could also offer to give them a reference if they do a good job.

If they do offer courses, you could always sign up for one yourself!
The picture shows the sugar roses that I made for my wedding cake. You can find the instructions in my book, Easy Wedding Planner.

One last idea
Instead of a traditional wedding cake, why not make lots of fairy cakes or madeleines, and stack them up into a huge pile. You could decorate them with sprinkled rose petals or swirls of spun sugar!

And finally.....a wedding cake funny from You Tube. Apologies for the language!

Email: jennifer@diybrides.co.uk
Copyright Jennifer Page 2008