Wedding Cake

What do you think?

The Boy and I took a second Wilton's cake class at Micheal's this summer. They ran some special and so the class only cost $7 (material excluded). I'm going to try to make my own wedding cake next fall and so I was trying out flavors and techniques of tiering cakes. I used dowel sand the cake made it all the way home from Micheal's. Some of the forums I have read are absolutely against dowels but they have been used long before any of the other methods. I also learned fondant in this class. The boy really likes the look and I have to agree. We wanted to try another brand fondant but living in the middle of no where the only cake place that I thought might have it was only open Sundays. Have you ever heard of a store being open only on Sunday. The Church of all plastic brides and grooms.

The cakes are vanilla white butter cake with strawberry buttercream, Red velvet cake with cream cheese icing and Chocolate butter cake with chocolate cherry ganche. Minus the red velvet cake the two cakes were wonderful bakehouse recipes (I believe that's the name). The chocolate cherry ganache and the cream cheese icing were Martha Stewart Recipes. What I learned:
* I much prefer cake recipes from scratch because they are more dense and honestly I find them easier to work with. They also don't have the excessive RISE on the top of the cake. There may be ways around this but with scratch this isn't an issue.
*I thought the two wonderful bakehouse recipes were GREAT. Especially the White butter cake. * If you are using vanilla from Walmart or you local grocery store change to Madagascar Vanilla. It is more expensive but is comparable. I've been cooking and baking more and more in my old age and better ingredients make for better foods.
* I made my own kirtsch cherries because I couldn't find them, so the error of this recipe may be mine. Either way I did not love the chocolate cherry ganache. The cream cheese icing was good.
* Simple syrups are a trick to keep cakes moist.
* Unsalted butter is used because salt acts as a preservative . By buying unsalted butter you unsure fresher butter.
*Harder to find, but european unsalted butter is a key ingredient in baking cakes and making fresh buttercream. Generic brands are not best. When I opened the wrapped of the european butter I was honestly knocked out by the fresh smell of butter. Aren't aromas half the fun of cooking?
* The cakes came out better when I coated the pans with shortening and then placed a wax paper circle on the bottom or the cake.
* Easier to prepare if you let them stay in the fridge overnight.