DIY Naked Wedding Cake

Eeek! I can't believe it! My dear little sister S is married! I'm so happy for her and her dear husband A. Congratulations, you two!

When she announced her decision to get married I jumped at the chance to make her wedding cake. There is almost nothing I love more than baking and cake decorating. Except, you know, the norms, like family and friends. And it's not too often I get to practice wedding cakes. It's too much cake for Dear Husband and I to eat on our own so it seems wasteful to make one just to practice.

I knew that a naked cake was the perfect cake for my dear sweet sister. It fits her sweet, easy going vibe. And they're so much easier to make than people think. This is a totally doable wedding DIY.

Now, I wish I had photographed the entire process but it didn't occur to me to turn this into a tutorial until after the wedding. There was so much to do for the wedding that my blog took a backseat. But, again, it's so simple to do that hopefully text instructions will suffice until I can get a photo tutorial made up for you guys.

I got the cake recipe, a chocolate layer cake, from the Betty Crocker Cookbook, found here at Amazon. I did scout out their website but they don't have the recipe available outside of the cookbook.

And I used the Betty Crocker Vanilla Buttercream recipe, available in the cookbook but, bonus! It's also available on the website! You can find the recipe here.

You'll also want three six-inch cake pans and three ten-inch pans. You can find those here.

Additionally you'll want some piping bags, dowel rods, cake circles (6" and 10"), and optionally but I believe to be worth it, baking strips, found here, here, here, and here. The simplicity of the icing means you don't have to use any decorating tips. You can accomplish this just by cutting the end off the piping bag. But that's your call to make.

And to decorate, you'll want real fruit and silk flowers of your choice. We used strawberries and raspberries. And some powdered sugar.

Step One: Preheat oven to three fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Make the cake batter according to the recipe, but quadruple the cake recipe. Yes, you read that correctly. Quadruple it. You might have to make it in two separate batches. If you're using a cake mix, purchase four mixes. Size the baking strips to the pan sizes. Generously grease the pans with butter and cocoa powder (you'd usually use flour but it leaves a white residue on the cake whereas cocoa powder blends right in to chocolate cake). Wet the cake strips and fit around the pans. Use two cups of batter for each one of the six-inch pans and six cups of batter for each one of the ten-inch pans. Bake the six-inch pans for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Bake the ten-inch pans 30-35 mins, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow cakes to cool in their pans for ten minutes on a wire rack, then remove the cakes from the pan to cool completely. The baking strips help keep the tops of the cake flat but you may have still have to trim the cake tops to get them completely flat.

Step Two: Make the icing according to the recipe. Again, you're going to have to quadruple the recipe.

Step Three: Fill an icing bag three quarters full. Dot a ten-inch cake round with icing and lay one ten-inch cake on the round. Pipe around the edge of the cake a series of dollops approximately the size of a half dollar coin. Fill in the remaining area of the cake with icing. Lay another ten-inch cake on top of that. Repeat the icing process. Lay the last ten-inch cake on top of that, but you won't be icing this layer as before. Center a six-inch cake round on the top of the ten-inch cake just to get an idea where it will sit. Cut four dowels to the height of the ten-inch cake tier and place them in a square shape under where the six-inch cake circle will sit (dowels give the layers stability). Use a few dots of icing under the cake circle and place it center on the ten-inch cakes. Add a few more dots of icing on the top of the cake circle and place a six-inch cake on top. Repeat the icing process from the ten-inch cakes. Repeat for the second layer.  Place the last six-inch cake on the top. Cut three dowels to the height of the six-inch tier and arrange them in a triangle shape. Ice the top of the last six-inch cake with half dollar sized dollops all over the top.

Step Four: If not already done so, place cake on cake stand. Arrange some fruit and flowers around the front side of the base of the cake. Use dots of icing on the ten-inch tier and arrange the fruit and flowers around the front side of the cake. Arrange fruit and flowers on the top of the cake, already iced from before. Dust cake with powdered sugar.

Viola! You did it! You just made your very own naked wedding cake! Someday I hope to update this post with a step by step photo tutorial that will make it much easier to see exactly what I did and how I did it. But for now this is what I've got. Good luck and much love, Hailee.