Wedding Cake

Last Christmas I made three Christmas cakes using variations on Nigella's chocolate and prune cake. I am not that fond of coffee liqueur, so I substituted Cointreau, which had the added advantage of not having to go out and buy it as I have a very large bottle at home. It also goes well with the other ingredients as oranges are used in the recipe. This was a huge success with all the family who declared it the best Christmas cake ever. My cousin and her boyfriend were round during the Festive season and were offered some. When they tried it they asked me to make them their Wedding cake; as this was to take place in August I wasn't sure that they were serious about it. Anyway about a month ago my cousin reminded me that they still wanted me to make their cake and was I still willing to do it. I said that that would be my Wedding present to them.


The cakes I 'd made for Christmas were round and decorated with orange and lemon jellies and chocolate buttons. I thought that a square cake would be more suitable for a Wedding. As my Christmas cakes were not conventionally iced, as I am not particularly fond of traditional icing, I said that did not want to make an iced Wedding cake. My cousin said that was exactly her choice too and that this would be perfectly fine. I glazed them with apricot jam, another diversion from the Nigella recipe, giving them a very attractive gloss, as you can see below in the half decorated cake.

I racked my brains and scoured all the shops in London to find a way of decorating this cake. I went up to Selfridges, which always used to have everything you needed. The Food Hall was famous for having the most wonderful selection. No more! It is a sad shadow of its former glory. I was looking for high quality sugared almonds in white and silver; these were always available in the past. It now appears that they are not.

I did find dragees and bought a variety of different types and eventually used chocolate marbled almonds. I found some yoghurt coated strawberry sweets in Cranberry; a chain of stalls at the mainline stations in London, selling sweets, dried fruits and nuts. The white chocolate hearts were from John Lewis, Oxford Street, and the chocolate tiles that surround the cake were made from chocolate that I 'd bought in France on holiday this year. I melted the chocolate and spread it out thinly on baking parchment allowing it to cool and set completely before cutting it up into suitable pieces to stick round the sides of the cake using icing as "glue" to anchor the chocolate in place.

I made two cakes as my cousin said it was for 30 people and I wasn't sure how far one cake would go. In the event the pieces of cake served were very small and I doubt if one cake was used at the Wedding party itself.

The cakes are displayed side by side as I'd intended.

The prunes were from Agen in France and my cousin is from Agen so there was a considerable amount of symbolic importance to this. Everyone was very complimentary about the cake and I felt very happy that this had been such a success.