The Wedding Cake Book [Hardcover]

Dede Wilson CCP (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 14, 1997

The wedding market is a $32 billion business. Experts say that brides-to-be generally buy every book and magazine they can get their hands on when planning a wedding, and yet, remarkably, The Wedding Cake Book is the first cookbook of its kind -- a gorgeous idea book that really shows you how to bake a beautiful wedding cake. There are 30 complete recipes in all, with detailed, step-by-step instructions. A one-of-a-kind resource, with gorgeous photography throughout, The Wedding Cake Book is sure to become a classic cookbook among bakers, and makes the perfect shower gift.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Although the wedding cake is usually one of the last details engaged couples settle on before the big day, it's just as important for setting the tone and style of the celebration as the flowers or the invitations. An elegant, towering Croquembouche studded with golden almonds and wrapped in clouds of spun sugar sends a different message than a rich-looking Gianduja Truffle Cake decorated with fresh fruit and dusted with gold powder or a White Chocolate Satin Apricot Cake adorned with flowers (click to see photos). Chef Dede Wilson believes that wedding cakes should be aesthetically pleasing, but above all should "reflect the tastes, beliefs, and desires of the bridal couple." With the aim of creating cakes that taste as good as they look, Wilson lends her expertise and creative spirit to the marvelous constructions in The Wedding Cake Book.

As much a cookbook as a source of inspiration, The Wedding Cake Book takes bakers--novices and experts alike--step by step through the process of conceptualizing, baking, assembling, and decorating wedding cakes of all levels of difficulty. Each recipe page includes the components needed to make the pictured cake (layers, fillings, decorating accouterments, equipment); the number of servings; the level of difficulty (easier, moderate, or complex); and the recipe and preparation instructions. Other chapters cover finishing touches, cake accompaniments such as sauces and fillings, equipment, and resources for special ingredients or professional equipment. Bakers looking for detailed instructions and delicious recipes and brides seeking ideas for the perfect cake for their postnuptial celebration will find what they're after in The Wedding Cake Book.

From the Inside Flap

How many tiers should the wedding cake have? Should the tiers be separated with pillars or stacked? Chocolate, vanilla, or almond cake layers? What flavor buttercream? Fresh lilies or marzipan roses? Lemons curd, blackberry curd, or both? Decorative with ganache, ribbons, gold dragées, nuts, or icing?

The Wedding Cake Book offers you the answers to all of these questions, along with complete baking and decorating instructions for thirty gorgeous cakes, all beautifully photographed.

The wedding cake is often the centerpiece of the reception — it is a symbol of new love. It's meant to be savored long after the last bite is eaten. Whether you're planning your own wedding (Congratulations!) or making a wedding cake for a special friend or relative, The Wedding Cake Book will be invaluable to you.

Frst, author Dee Wilson helps you to plan: will the wedding be casual or formal; how many guests are there; what is the budget? The basics of making a wedding cake come next: cake sizing, baking techniques, storing and transporting, how to work with chocolate and pastry bags. Specialty tools are discussed, including icing spatulas, decorating turntables, masonite boards, and combing tools. Then there are specialty techniques like assembling cakes with pillars, crystallizing flowers, working with fresh greenery, sugar molding, and working with marzipan and chocolate plastic.

A chapter on basic cake making contains dozens of recipes for cake layers in every flavor and size, varieties of buttercreams, frostings, curds and fillings, and chocolate ganache.

If you're tired of the old standard—white cake with white buttercream—then The Wedding Cake Book is the book for you. gorgeous designs feature fresh flowers and foliage, crystallized flowers and fruits, marzipan flowers, nuts and leaves, both square and round cakes, and more. If you're looking for something unique, you'll find cheesecakes, coffee cakes, and even a Flaming Baked Alaska wedding cake.

Dede believes a cake should not only be beautiful but also delicious. Here are a few of her exciting recipes: White Chocolate Satin Apricot Cake with White Chocolate Flowers and rapes, Double Expresso Wedding Cake, Hazelnut Dacquoise and Hazelnut Génoise Wedding Cake, and Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cake.

Wedding memories are meant to be cherished for a lifetime. and the cake should be just as special. The Wedding Cake Book presents a world of delicious flavors, wonderful colors, and striking designs to make sure that your wedding day mdash; and your cake — are unforgettable.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (April 14, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028612345
• ISBN-13: 978-0028612348
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #204,423 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dede Wilson is a popular food writer and television personality with her own public television show, Seasonings with Dede Wilson, in wide distribution throughout the U.S. and Canada. An additional show, The Holiday Table, began airing in Fall 2006 and will run through 2009; the 90-minute Holiday Pledge Special that she produced for PBS in 2005 was re-broadcast throughout the holiday season in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Wilson has been a spokesperson for KitchenAid, making frequent live and televised appearances around the country for KitchenAid products. She is also a prolific cookbook author and a contributing editor for Bon Appetit magazine. Wilson has appeared on all the major TV networks, and has been invited frequently to appear on shows including Today, The View, and Live with Regis and Kelly. She has also appeared on QVC to sell her cookbooks, has been featured on Bon Appetit podcasts, and makes personal appearances at Bon Appetit events around the country. Currently she hosts a monthly Bon Appetit segment on the CBS's Early Show.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you only buy one wedding cake book ...., September 30, 2003

By 

elanorh "secondseven" (Sheridan, WY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wedding Cake Book (Hardcover)

I am not a professional wedding cake baker. I work in the food industry though, and have baked wedding cakes and groom cakes (from this book) from family and friends. The family friend who made our wedding cake, used a recipe straight from this book as well- and went out to buy her own copy of the book afterwards. She has baked cakes professionally for quite a few years.

Dede wrote the book well, with detailed descriptions of how to go about making the cakes and the frostings described. I think an amateur could easily use this cookbook to create a cake that they would love -- and I think that 'experts' can learn something from the book, as well. Too many wedding cakes today could just as easily be made of frosting and styrofoam for all the flavor (or personality) which they have. White, shortening-based frosting towers of mediocrity seem to dominate the cakes used at weddings -- if that's what you're looking for, don't bother to look at this book.

If you want something which *might* be unusual (there are some cakes which could satisfy the more 'basic' wedding cake desires some might have) -- if what you want is a cake with actual flavor, not out of a box, and with potentially even, some personality to reflect the interests/backgrounds of the bride and groom -- this is a good place to look.

The Chocolate Raspberry Truffle recipe is divine, and simple. I've given the recipe out many times! I've used several recipes from this cookbook, for special occasions and also just to see what they tasted like. To be honest, one of the things that attracted me to the book is that it focuses on the multiple uses that the cakes could have -- and the fact that for someone who *is not* into frosting details, it isn't intimidating. If you want to create an elaborate frosted cake, you can easily do so (some are elaborate) -- but you can also create a more simple and elegant version if you want to. The cakes and frostings have enough personality to be able to stand without the fancy frostings, if you don't want an elaborate design.

The information about ingredients and where to get them etc. is also good - the author does talk about pesticide concerns with flowers etc., if people pay attention to what's written in her introduction/ingredient area and in the index as well.

I would recommend, though, that for people who aren't used to making things like divinity etc., it would be a good idea to have someone in the kitchen helping you the first time or two that you attempt the Italian Buttercream frosting. It helps to coordinate so that the various steps are ready at the same time, and makes it easier to make when you're first figuring out how it works.

Also one detail not mentioned -- the syrup-based frostings used, may need to be adjusted for altitude, if you try to make them based on temperature. Your boiling temperature etc. will change with altitude, so unless you're comfortable using the old-fashioned "hard ball" "soft ball" etc. stages, you'll want to contact your local Extension office to find out how you might need to adjust the recipes for your elevation.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars These cakes are not just for weddings!, September 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Wedding Cake Book (Hardcover)

Dede Wilson's clear instructions and love of fine ingredients inspired me to take her advice and try my hand at a few "practice" cakes. I took the Chocolate Raspberry Truffle cake to a potluck dinner, and it was the hit of the party! I enjoyed the White Chocolate Apricot cake so much, I'm making another one. Because Wilson includes individual recipes for the sizes of all the tiers, from 6" up to 14" in some cases, the reader can make a smaller cake for any type of function. I believe this book IS for the typical bride, if the typical bride is someone who loves the best ingredients combined in a pleasing manner and presented beautifully. I've tried samples of wedding cake from six local professional bakers, and the cakes I've made from this book top them all! Brides, please keep in mind that some wedding cake bakers use mixes; armed with Wilson's book, a bride is sure to serve the best on her wedding day, or any other day that calls for a cake.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clearly the best choice for the amateur wedding cake maker, September 5, 2002

By 

Catherine S. Vodrey (East Liverpool, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wedding Cake Book (Hardcover)

DeDe Wilson, a self-taught pastry chef from western Massachusetts, has done amateur bakers an enormous favor with the publication of "The Wedding Cake Book." Not only does she make the awe-inspiring task of making a wedding cake easier than you might imagine by breaking it down into manageable steps, but the recipes actually WORK and work beautifully.

As Wilson says in the book, "A wedding cake should not only be beautiful, but delicious." Sounds like good sense, of course, but it really is amazing how many weddings you can go to where the wedding cakes are either sort of blah and unmemorable or they're just downright unattractive because of dryness, Crisco-like frosting, or a discord of flavors.

In "The Wedding Cakes Book," Wilson gives you the benefit of her experience of more than a decade. She knows which flavors go together beautifully (white chocolate and apricot, anyone?) and gives you not only "the usual suspects" of flavor combinations, but some deliciously unusual ones as well. She takes carrot cake to a sublime level by giving you a recipe for Honey Maple Carrot Cake with Pecans and Raisins (perfect for that crunchy granola bride who's wearing flip-flops, a wreath of daisies in her hair, and a cotton gauze dress). For an autumn wedding, what could be prettier or more appropriate than a Pumpkin Cake with Crystallized Ginger, Walnuts, and Dried Cranberries? The Gianduja Truffle Cake is a dream of a dessert which incorporates both bittersweet chocolate and gianduja paste, a hazelnut/chocolate confection that's typically Italian and utterly delicious. For the second-time or ultra-sophisticated bride who wants something utterly different, Wilson provides a recipe for a handsome and savory Smoked Salmon Cheesecake Wedding Cake. I could go on and on, for all the cakes here are splendid to look at and really, truly not difficult to make as much as demanding of your time.

Even those who haven't foolishly offered to provide a wedding cake for someone they love will get a kick out of the sumptuous photographs, the clear, clear, clear directions, and the fact that almost every single recipe can be made as just a regular cake as well (hint: just make one tier of the many tiers involved and you're in business!). Highly recommended!