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Equipment for making a Wedding Cake |
 Lots of equipment needed: Cake stand, saucepans, bain marie, moulds, baking tins, piping bag, rolling pins and more Even if you're a keen cook, a wedding cake could require equipment you wouldn't normally have. This is the equipment I needed:
- Cake tins: You will need to plan how many tins and their sizes as early as possible. Buy the tins together if you can, because proportions and angles are often slightly different
- Boards: You'll need silver or gold coloured boards to go under each of the cakes on the stand. Cake boards should be 2 inches wider than the tins to leave room for the icing. I know that seems unbelievable, but it's true. One of mine was only 1 inch bigger than the cake and I ended up piping around the edge of it because there wasn't quite enough room.
- Oven: You'll need an oven that's big even to bake a cake in the biggest tin. My microwave / conventional combination was only just big enough for the 10 inch tin.
- Large mixing bowl: Remember, the biggest sponge will need more mixing room than usual.
- Electric mixer / whisk: I bought a handheld electric mixer from the value range in Tesco's and it was fine. The smaller sponges could be mixed by hand with a fork but by the time they reached the 10 inch size, hand mixing was too difficult.
- Rolling surface: I bought ready-rolled marzipan that came with its own plastic rolling surface.
- Mug: I found that the type of enamel mug you find in camping shops was ideal for mixing coffee and letting it cool down quickly.
- Hobs: You'll need to warm the ganache and chocolate sauces on a hob with enough control to get a very low heat.
- Saucepans: You'll need at least two saucepans.
- Bain-marie: Make a bain-marie by placing a small amount of water in a saucepan. Then put a mixing bowl (ceramic or pyrex) in the top of a saucepan so that it's balanced above the top of the water. Boil the water in the bottom of the saucepan, and then lower or turn off the heat.
- Paper Kitchen roll: Some of the ingredients are very sticky, and it will help to have kitchen roll for when you put things down.
- Turntable or Lazy Susan: very handy for decorating
- Rolling pin: Ideally, this should be long enough for the flat section to span your widest cake.
- Long palette knife: This should be long enough to span your widest cake.
- Piping bag and attachments: You'll need this for decorating around the bottom edge of the cakes to prevent a messy looking join with the cake board.
- Mould for chocolate decorations: I was lucky to be able to use the tray from my son's advent calendar.
- Cake stand: Most people wouldn't have this, but you can rent them from cookery shops. Book well in advance and plan for plenty of travelling time.
- Decorations: Flowers, strings of beads, sugar decorations, statue etc. (Obviously you'll need to discuss these with the bride and groom).
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