I Made My Wedding Cake for $20 — And It Feeds 72 People!

Bold Bakers it is wedding season and it's an absolute fact that once you mention the word wedding cake to a baker the price skyrockets for that cake. The average price of a cake for a wedding in America is five to six hundred dollars which is so crazy. Today I'm going to show you how you can make a wedding cake for 72 people that costs 20 dollars. It is made with good quality ingredients, it's going to look beautiful, the flavor is amazing, you are going to be amazed. Okay let's get started by making the base cake. So the biggest expense for this cake are the eggs. We need 18 eggs and they came in at 324. Now I know eggs around the country can be very crazy expensive right now so definitely try and find good quality but also the cheapest. So I chose a genoise sponge to make this cake because it doesn't contain any butter which can be really expensive. It's based on eggs, sugar, a little bit of flour and raising agent, only those four ingredients. So it's much cheaper to make. I know eggs can be a little bit pricey so just be careful where you source them. Now for the eggs make sure they're at room temperature because we're going to need them to whip up really well. So you're going to want to whip your eggs up on high speed until they get really lovely and thick. Once we see that they're nice and light and pale and fluffy we'll start to slowly add in our sugar. So because this is such a big cake we do have to make the batter in two batches. So I'm starting out here with the ingredients for our two 10-inch cakes. Once that's done we'll get into the oven and then we'll make one more batter to make the remaining cakes. So if you're not familiar with a genoise sponge it's very different to like a yellow cake. It's light, it's fluffy, it has a lot of air from all the whipping. It's typically known as a European sponge cake because we would use it a lot and if you've ever had a Swiss roll this is the base of a Swiss roll where it's just soft and fluffy and even pliable enough to be able to roll. So this cake is perfect for a wedding cake because it's cheap and it's also really delicious. So you can hear that slapping it's gotten lovely and thick. You do want to give a good few minutes to get nice and thick like that. If it's not thick enough you start to add in your sugar. The sugar will just fall to the bottom of the mix rather than get caught up in the air bubbles. And just like if you're making a meringue just do it nice and slowly one spoon at a time, sprinkle it on. You've got nowhere to go, nothing to do. Just stand in there making cakes. So our granulated sugar is just one dollar and eleven cents. There we go. That was definitely 10 minutes of mixing. Look at that because it's a very big cake. This is only the base. So this is lovely and thick and fluffy, aerated, beautiful. This is the base of our cake. To this we are going to add in our dry ingredients. If you're gluten free you can definitely use a one for one gluten free substitute. King Arthur does a really good one, our Bob's Red Mills. This is all purpose flour and for this amount of all purpose flour it is 42 cents. And then here I have my baking powder. And for our baking powder just six cents. And then we are going to sieve it over. The reason we sieve it is the exact same way that we slowly added in the sugar. If you watch you know French pastry chefs on Instagram like Cedric Grolet, like these guys, this is how I learned, this is how they do it. It's classic technique and it's just best practices. So and just like what they would do, big metal spoon, we do not want to be coming at it with a spatula, a big thick old spatula. We created all these lovely bubbles and the air in here. So we want to fold, get in there Joey and show them what I'm talking about. Fold in that flour gently around the bowl, cut down the middle. Around the bowl, cut down the middle. What is it Joey? Around the bowl, cut down the middle. There you go see. You'll feel the cake start to stiffen and sieving in that flour just aerates the cake even more. Now you want to do this just until your flour is combined and then we are going to stop. We do not want to knock out our air. Gorgeous all the flour is in. Now let's talk pans. So here I have some non-stick pans. Chicago Metallic does a nice set where you can get all the sizes for this cake. You can also do this cake custom and do it in rectangles if you want to use sheet pans that you already have, that's fine too. I'm going to start out by doing the base. So these are the two 10 inch and I'm going to fill these up. Now let me tell you something when you're making anything like an angel food cake or a Genois sponge, something like this. You do not classically grease the pans. You line them for sure but you actually don't grease the pan and the reason you don't grease the pan is because if you do the egg will slide down the pan and it won't grip the pan. So your cakes essentially sink. If you don't grease your pan the cake sticks to the side which you'd think oh no that's usually a bad thing. Not in this case. This is what we want. So just a little bit of parchment in the bottom. No butter, no cooking spray please and then this is it. With a Genois sponge you do want to flatten it out. So take your spatula and then just flatten out the top of your cake just like this. Perfect. See I'm a professional I've been doing this for so long you probably couldn't even see how fast I was doing it. Lovely. That's great and at the end of the day you get to lick your spatula. Beautiful lovely. Let's get these two layers in and then we can start whipping up the rest of the cake. While that layer is baking we're going to make the same cake over again and divide it between our four smaller tins. So make the cake in the exact same way. Here I have my eight inch and my six inch tins. Divide your batter evenly between these pans. For complete accuracy you can put them on a weighing scale. I know it looks like a lot of cake but remember we're feeding 72 people. And then just like the other layers just go in with a little spatula and flatten it out on top. So for my cakes I put the fan on in my oven because we need the air to circulate and evenly bake our cakes. So I set my oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit 165 degrees Celsius with the fan on and they took around 20 minutes pretty much on the dot so you're looking at around 18 to 20 something like that. For the next batch the smaller cakes I also did same temperature and the same time they came out at 20 minutes. So just keep an eye on them around the 18 minute mark. If you do not have a fan which I know many people do not then just rotate the pans as they're baking. So to make the syrup you need a small heavy bottom saucepan. Into it we're going to add in some white sugar which is 37 cents, some lemon juice, lemon zest and that is 58 cents because that takes a whole lemon. And then of course our water. Turn on the heat to low and without letting it simmer just slowly dissolve that sugar. If you've made simple syrup before this is exactly what it is. We're going to brush each layer of our cake with this to add extra moisture and flavor. Once you can see your sugar is dissolved it's gotten nice and hot. You turn it off and then just pour it through a sieve to get it nice and clear and to remove any lumps of zest or sugar. Now your syrup is ready. The total of our lemon syrup is 95 cents. Not a bad deal. These lovely fresh baked cakes smell amazing. So a Genoa sponge is a bit of a funny sponge. It's always flat on top as you can see here. It never really rises or bumps. So it's going to look like this. They're all the same color, they're all baked evenly. This is fantastic. I will tell you once they've been out of the oven and cooled down for around 10 minutes a really good tip is to take a sharp knife and just gently run it around the edge of the cake. And all this is going to do is release the cake from the pan so it doesn't get stuck. And it will also actually stop the cake from sticking to the pan and then sinking in the middle which you can see a dip in a cake sometimes. So just run that knife around really briefly and you should end up with a nice level cake. I'm going to let these sit here, cool down, get nice and cold before we can start to decorate them. And if you are making this cake, you can make them a day or even two days in advance. So they're perfect for decorating. So our cakes are out of the oven. They're looking great. Now let's talk about the other elements that we need for this cake. So for the filling, we're going to add in jam. I love raspberry jamming cake. I went to the supermarket. I decided to see if I could buy it. Maybe it would be cheaper to buy. It turns out it was probably four times more expensive and not as good. So if you check out my homemade microwave raspberry jam recipe, it is really easy to make all natural ingredients and it costs $3.69, not like $14 which is what I saw at my local grocery store. So this is a much better option. So and it's going to make a really nice addition to our cake. So for the frosting, I thought a lot about this because buttercream frosting is delicious but it's very expensive. Then I thought about a Swiss meringue which could be kind of tricky when it comes to wedding cakes even though that would have been quite cheap too. So I settled on an ermine frosting which is a frosting that is based on a roux, a cooked flour mixture, and then you beat butter into that. So there's still butter in this. It could be quite expensive but not nearly as expensive as buttercream. The flavor is really good. It's also really good for wedding cakes that have to sit out for a little while especially in the spring and the summertime. It really can like hold its own. So I thought this was fantastic. So I had to make three batches of this, the recipes on my website and the total was $11.22. So to cover a wedding cake that serves 72 people, I don't think that's too bad. Okay enough talking, let's get moving. So as you can see I have cake boards. Of course I made them because I didn't want to pay for them to make my cake extra money. This is literally my Amazon delivery box. You want to cut it smaller than the base of your cake. You can cover it in cling wrap and tin foil or just one or the other. That's totally up to you. Foil definitely kind of makes it a lot cleaner. We're gonna put that on there. You need three of these for the layers. Down goes our first layer and I'm gonna put this flat bottom down on my cake stand. If there's very loose crumbs because this is a soft cake, just brush them away because this is gonna be like a naked cake. Look we don't want too many loose crumbs in our frosting. Now you know that lovely syrup that we made, we are gonna brush the top of our cake with that. Gemma sponge can be a bit on the drier side. So we want to add a little bit of moisture especially if it's made the day before and also a little bit of flavor with that lemon in there will work really well with the raspberry. Make sure you go all the way to the edges. Sometimes I think bakers forget the edges. First things first, our ermine frosting is the first layer that goes down. Bring that frosting all the way to the edge. That will help us when we're doing our naked style and because we're not torting these cakes, you do want a big bit of frosting in the middle so you get frosting in every bite of cake. Now on with our jam. When you're making your cake, you're really going to have to eyeball like how much you need per layer of your frosting and of your jam. My suggestion though is make sure you have a nice generous amount. With the jam when you're spreading it on, don't go too close to the edge because we don't want it to start to seep out and we'll see it on the other side. So just give it a little bit of a border so that doesn't happen. We are now going to top this like so. For this layer we turn it over so the bottom is now the top. I'm just going to brush away any of those excess crumbs because I don't want them to be causing me trouble later. Now just like the other layer we're going to brush it with our syrup all around. Go on with your frosting. Frosting on top and then we're going to take that frosting and just like we do with any of our cakes, we're going to bring it down the sides. My recommendation to you when you're cake decorating, stay calm and take your time. Just don't let the stress get you. Then we're going to bring it down the sides. The beauty of a naked cake is that exposed side and that style of decorating kind of just covers a multitude of sins. If you're new to cake decorating, definitely check out other videos that I've done about like naked cake decoration. It's really the easiest way to go and then later on when we build this up and embellish it with flowers, it's really going to all come together. So this layer was done. I'm going to pop it in the fridge because it needs time to set and firm. I'm going to continue working on the other two layers, put them in the fridge, let the whole cake get nice and cold. Then I'm going to take them out and start to assemble and we are then ready for the main event. So all my layers are lovely and cold and I am confident now that it's time to decorate. So here I have some straws and you can get these in the dollar store and I'm going to use these as my dowel to hold up the cake to be the pillars inside the cake because it's going to end up getting quite heavy. So we're going to put an eight inch layer cake on top of this. So just make sure you spread out your straws to support that cake board coming in that cake. And then when you're cutting, go straight down like flush between the cake and the icing and then just if you need to do a little push in, that's great. We want it to be the exact, even there we go, a little bit under even. You don't want it sticking up. And now you can go ahead and put on your other layers. Okay so here's my second layer. It also has been doweled. It's on our cake board if you remember. And use a palette knife or something here to steady yourself. Nice and slow and carefully does it. Lovely. We'll go back over it in a minute if we have to. And then lastly, our six inch cake on top. Careful. You don't want to damage the frosting or the cake. There we go. This is looking really good. This is looking really good. I'm happy that it has enough support. I'm just, just as the last looks go over and see if there's any nicks or any little bits of holes that you have to fill in once you have put on those tears. So now I'm going to put it onto my cake stand, which I probably should have done before I built it up here, but I got a little bit carried away. And then we're going to put on the flowers and it's going to be absolutely gorgeous. So here's my little secret for the flowers. Beg, borrow and steal from your garden and everybody else's garden. There are so many beautiful flowers out there all around us. And the thing about it is you only need literally a handful to really embellish the cake and make it look good. My tip to you is try and pick the flowers from your neighbors that are more closer to the road because their security cameras can't reach there. So just keep a little bit back from the house and you'll be totally fine. When you have your stolen flowers, make sure that you wrap the base in a little bit of cling wrap and then cover that in a little bit of foil and just to protect anything, anything from the plant going into the cake. And once you've done that, they'll be totally fine. It really isn't until you see this whole cake come together on the cake stand with the flowers, all the tears on top, until you really see your masterpiece and the hard work that you have done. In my opinion, honestly, this wedding cake could be a four $500 wedding cake. It is so impressive. It is lovely ingredients used on the inside. It looks beautiful on the outside. You know, when you're aware of your budget, like I often am, you can just see how we can still make really amazing things that bring a smile to people's face and makes them happy. And it also tastes great too. And because I'm not getting married anytime soon, I'm going to cut into this cake. You can see the beautiful layers of the frosting in the jam and just how soft that chanois sponge is. We all know this cake looks great, but I'm telling you it tastes great too. So the moment of truth, my entire cake, everything included cost a total of $20.70, which is, for 72 people, 28 cents a slice. I mean, it's absolutely insane. It is so delicious. We've made with good quality ingredients compared to some of those other cakes we see out there. So this year, it's all about making your own wedding cake. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you make your own cake and I'll see you back here again really soon.