Annie, your family and community (and us too) are so lucky to have you! What great cake and how nice of you to make it for them. I was a bit dubious of the red, white and blue color scheme, but you pulled it off!
Amanda and Makayla are adorable as ever and I'm dying to hear about the wedding...in detail!

Gorgeous cake, they must have loved it !

Annie,
Lovely, delicious looking cake and rolls too! I admire anyone with artistic skills when it comes to cake baking. I can bake them just fine, but I'm really lame with the decorating! Once you finish enforcing the "long arm of the law", I see a wedding catering business in your future:-) As Ellen said, it really was so nice of you to do all that for your family. They are lucky to have you.
DONNA

Nice job, Annie! I've been curious about the cake. Love the batter tasters. And the wedding story was a hoot! I'll bet you hope the next wedding is held in cooler weather.

Great going, Annie! You always come through!

I'm saving my money, I'm coming for the next one :) Jayne, I'm betting, Annie, doesn't wish for cooler weather, I'm betting that she wishes the next wedding is in a different county, LOL! That was some wedding!

Annie,

What a beautiful and unique cake:) You did a great job, what a great aunt you are. Now maybe you will have to go into the canning and cake baking business:)

Stacie

BTW my birthday is August 30th if you feel the need to make another cake LOL

Great job Annie!

Good to see Makayla is learning about the special tasting that baker's get to do....

Your welcome... and as for the frosting....that mixer has made so many batches of butter cream I'm surprised it didn't tell you how to do it without a cloud... :))

Nancy

Annie that's one great looking cake, good job! Your bowl licker is as adorable as ever.

200 rolls...yowser!

Annie the cake and thee rolls are beautiful (not to mention your two "helpers!")

Gorgeous! And I'm betting it tasted even better than it looked!

Wow, Annie, your talenty never ceases to amaze me! That cake is very cool!

Seems like every time you post a pic of Makayla she gets bigger and bigger! She is becoming quite the little lady!

Linda

Thank you for all the nice comments. Notice the cake was "short"? I was wishing I'd gone one tier higher, but even two tiers and the buttercream was "squishing" out between the bottom tiers. I did make two sheet cakes so we would have enough, but I made his brother's wedding cake and it fell over in the heat last year. This year, it was staying together, appearance was secondary to structural integrity and the temperature in the hall was hovering somewhere around 90F.

Carol and Jayne, I know you read Elery's "version" of the wedding and reception and it was mostly true. I expect both of you to attend the next one! In the meantime, I'll do a "Reader's Digest Condensed Version" on conversations if I can get my dial up to cooperate tonight. You wouldn't want to miss the wedding guests riding downhill in the kids' wagon. Too bad I didn't get a picture of the "fair maiden" who urinated on the DJ's leg.....

Annie

Well, Annie...I will say the same thing to my organist friend when the bride wanted to walk down the aisle to the theme from Star Wars....she gently steered he towards using that as a recessional!
You complied with the bride's wishes in a most tasteful manner....and with a minimum of blue! LOL! I'll bet it was delicious!
Linda C

Makayla really has grown, her baby features are disappearing fast, but she's still a beauty and she can polish off a bowl of brownie batter with the best of'em. She and Thumper would get along just fine.

AB, you did a wonderful job on the cake; did you make the topper also? I think the bright colors were softened by the dotted design. Funny thing about the white cloud you made in White Cloud - how apropos.
Btw, I also had to make a cake for a family celebration. A shower cake for my niece, but I'll post the picture some other time.

In the meantime, you need to post a picture of the lovely dance couple [wink], and I don't mean the bride and groom, although, they were beautiful as well.

Sol

Hey Annie, for the next cake try using dowelling. You run pieces of dowelling the height of each tier in a rough circle about 1" smaller than the next tier up, then place the next tier on a cake board centered on the dowelling. Do this for each tier. This way the dowelling takes the weight of the higher tiers and there is no squishing of filling :-). You can cover any visible bits of cake board with icing. The main trick is to be sure all the dowelling pieces are exactly the same height so the next tier doesn't tilt.
How much dowelling you use depends on how many tiers up you are going to go. The more tiers, the more support you need at the bottom (maybe even one or two in the centre as well if it's going to be really heavy).

I meant to add (it's late and I'm tired so I pressed the button too soon :-( ) the cake looks delish (what flavour was it?) and I love the way you interpreted the "red white and blue" theme but still had it looking classy. (That is one difficult colour scheme!)
The rolls also look fantastic and I wish there was one down in my kitchen even as I type because I've got the snackies :-)

I think Makayla should be on the dividends thread. Obviously she knows all about the benefits of hanging around the kitchen with Annie!

What a glorious cake. It takes a real gift to pull off those vibrant colors. But give me a few of those rolls and some butter and I'm happy.

Carol

Sol, I did make the topper. The "faux" flower section at the local Evil Empire helped me with supplies that wouldn't melt. (grin) Without the flowers the blasted thing just reminded me of a circus. Somehow I'm sure my amateur cake decorating is nothing like the shower cake you made for your niece, I'd love to see that.

Colleen, the cake was French Vanilla from a cake mix for the top layer, per the bride's request. One of the sheet cakes was strawberry, also from a mix, groom's request. The other sheet cake was homemade carrot cake, MY choice, LOL, and the bottom tier was chocolate because, well, it just had to be. Much like the wedding in general, the
cake(s) were a wild conglomeration of flavors and styles but everyone was happy.

Except me, I spent all evening on Friday fighting with buttercream, my kitchen was hotter than the pits of h*ll, and I still wasn't happy with the final product. And I still wish I'd have gone one tier higher. I'll remember the doweling next time. I'd considered playing with fondant but I've had no experience with that at all and decided that some "practice" cakes in the future would be a better idea.

Still, I consoled myself with Sol's honey rolls and butter, something I can count on, that is always consistent and that seldom fails me.

Carol, I think many of the guests were like you and Colleen, they much preferred the bread and left the cake. Maybe I could convince the next family member that they need cinnamon rolls instead of cake?

Nah, it won't work. Makayla has already put in her birthday cake order, she wants a "tall" cake, with lots of pretty colors and some of those red and blue edible pearls. Figures.....

Annie

Love the cake...and the rolls yummy...

You are so talented, sounds like you all had a great time.

Linda

Sounds like a good time was had by all...well, maybe not the DJ!!

Annie, you're a helluva woman! The cake is just beautiful - I'm in the cake camp - the rest of you can have all those rolls and butter - give me all of that buttercream and a taste of the white layer, the strawberry sheet and the carrot cake sheet - how eclectic :-)

Hmmm, White Cloud/white cloud - very observant, Ms. Sol!

Annie - The cake is beautiful! Not to mention those delicious-looking rolls.

I see your g-daughter enjoying a ritual of childhood with licking the bowl . . . hey, wait, I just did that the other night but it was a bowl of sugar-free chocolate pudding.

I'm glad everything turned out so well.

Kari

Oh Annie, you are amazing. Woodie said it best. You make beautiful cakes and beautiful little girls.

Ann

Now, that's a CAKE! It all looks very tasty as well as very pretty. I want rolls AND cake! You could talk me into cinnamon rolls on my birthday, no problem.

*thud*

Nice job, Annie! The cake looks great and the wedding sounds like a hoot. I've been to weddings where Metallica was played on a boom box, fancy schmancy weddings with gourmet food, orchestras, etc..., and several that were in between. As long as the bride and groom were happy, that's all that matters in the long run. You did good!