Here we go... Pictures from the wedding, courtesy of Zach.

Wow, the wedding is over and it was a huge success! Both cake-wise and generally. I had planned on including a few more posts between now and the previous one, but a crashed browser window ate a really good one I had written about acids and bases and Dutch-processed cocoa powder and I just didn't have it in me to start it over again. The scariest part of the weekend, driving the cake up the mountain to Julian, turned out fine. I put the cakes in boxes with shelf liner, surrounded by blankets and pillows. There was a slight glitch where the cold weather was hardening the ganache faster than I could pipe the trim between the layers during assembly. Not too serious, fortunately. Decoration was similar to the trial run, with lots fo red roses. The secondary, berry-free groom's cake was decorated with a bride/groom figurine from eBay and a little plastic Vespa. Very cute.

So, end result, the bride and groom were happy and everybody loved the cake. By the end of the night, there was nothing left but about a third of the groom's cake. Lots of people were taking pictures. I should get some soon that I can put online, so keep reading!

Congrats, Eve and Sully!

So, the baking for the official, final wedding cake has begun. The second of tonight's two 10" chocolate cake layers just came out of the oven. I'm doing them one at a time this time around to avoid the uneven effect I got last time on cakes from the second oven rack. On Tuesday I did all the shopping for the cake part of the cake. Some numbers of what's going into this: 20 cups of flour, 8 cups of cocoa powder, 8 cups of butter, 17 cups of sugar, 32 eggs, and one gallon of milk. Yum! Valrhona cocoa this time, which I found at the local Whole Foods. Very classy. I plan on posting fewer pictures this time around since, if you've been reading, you've already seen how all of this works. If you haven't, get cracking!