This past month the juniors in the Baking Arts and Service Management program presented their wedding cake project to the campus. It was a truly exciting and terrifying moment for all of us, but it was worth it in the end.

When I first started my wedding cake project, I’ll admit that I was terrified; I had never really made a cake like this before and it was a nerve-wracking experience. In class we were assigned our brides, and we got to work setting up meetings. I made my meeting with my ‘bride,’ Sarah Hart, and I remember that I was really nervous walking into the meeting, having never met her before. My worries went away shortly after introducing myself to her. I remember thinking to myself, “I know what I’m doing; there’s no reason to be this nervous! Just breathe.” And that’s what I did. We went through our meeting, Sarah answered questions while I furiously took notes and drew up a sketch of what this cake would look like.

The next step was to actually start putting all of the elements together. My bride liked the idea of doing a more rustic-themed wedding, and she loved sunflowers. This was my biggest challenge and also the best learning experience of this cake for me. I had to learn how to make sunflowers, paint them, and get them to stay on this cake. I set to work watching videos and learning how to make petals (so many of them). Next Chef Adams taught me how to airbrush and dust them with color. Then came scrubbing my hands to get them back to a normal color! After making and drying all of those petals it was so gratifying to see them finally put together into an actual flower!

Making leaves for my flowers was the worst part of this cake for me; you have to put wire in them to make them stand. I had such a hard time with that, until I learned that you need to be patient and figure out a rhythm.

Next I had to actually start making my cake. Because I had to work with my bride’s preference for chocolate and peanut butter; I came up with a flourless chocolate cake with a peanut butter mousse. I made my cake and filled it, then had to cover it in fondant. Finally, I got to put the flowers on! Seeing those flowers on the cake was a huge weight off my shoulders.

Finally the day we had all been waiting for arrived. We all showed up to class and had to move our cakes over to the Pine Room. We got to see them on nice tablecloths with a gorgeous backdrop of the lake. We let out a collective sigh of relief when we all finally got our cakes on our tables. We got to stand in front of people and show off a little – show them just what we can do – and that was amazing.

This entire experience taught me a lot and I will take a great amount of Information away from not only this class but from my time here at Paul Smith’s in general. I truly am lucky to be able to do what I love and to be learning so much!