A cake of a dress

by Agata
(Frederick, MD)

When my friend asked me to make a bridal shower cake for her sisters shower I did not want to make the usual cake, I wanted something special, something different. I asked the bride-to-be, her favorite flavor, and she said strawberry.

That was my first problem: I never made a strawberry cake and I had no idea where to start! But, not wanting to disappoint my friend I looked around and finally settled on Paula Dean's Strawberry Cake and Strawberry flavored cream cheese frosting.

I made a "dry run" cake and used my husband and some friends to make sure the cake was "strawberried" enough. Having gotten the OK, I could think seriously of the design part of the cake.

I looked on various web-sites in search of bridal shower cake ideas and found many including on the "Wedding Cakes For You" website. The ones I liked best were ones with designs of a wedding dress. Some where on round cakes and some where on sheet cakes but even though they were really cute they were, in my opinion, not special enough or challenging enough for me to do.

Finally I decided to make the "skirt" part out of a round 14" cake and the "top" shaped from a 8" cake. I made various designs of wedding dresses and finally found one I liked.

I bought a foam poster and cut it in the shape of my dress and then covered the board with white fondant. That night and the next morning I made the cake, shaped, filled and covered i in white fondant.

I am not a professional baker and so it took me an enormous amount of time to figure out how to do everything and how to achieve the fold of the skirt.

Now I have to admit I made some rookie mistakes. I did not have enough fondant so at the end had to make a few "folds" thinner than the others. I did not measure the foam tray against the cake shapes so I had some gaps I needed to fill afterword by making a mock board for the skirt. And others that I will not bore you with.

Anyway, at the shower everybody loved it and most important of all the bride loved it which was the best reward of all for all my hard work.

Thank you Agata for a great story-tips and inspiration. Just shows how much one can do who is passionate enough. I am so happy to have this bridal shower cake addition to the site. Now when someone is searching for an idea for a shower brides dress cake they will find a gorgeous one right here on my site. Thank you for sharing :-)