A week of baking...Vintage floral wedding cake - Day 1

This week I have taken a holiday from work to get stuck into a fantastic project. I am honoured that my friend has asked me to make the wedding cake for her future sister in law, and finally after months of planning the week is finally here! The bride has requested 80 cupcakes and a 6" cutting cake and they will all be arranged on a clear perspex cake stand.

Today I have been working on all of the sugarcraft decorations, including a large open rose for the top tier, butterflies and hand moulded roses. As before with the white flowers I made for my Wedgwood blue cake, I am using the Peggy Porschen Cakes in Bloom book, as it gives perfectly clear step by step instructions to ensure beautiful results every time.

Setting up all of my equipment ready to start. After making the Wedgwood roses and keeping them upright by sticking them into an orange (necessity being the mother of invention!) I bought a polystyrene cake dummy to hold the flowers as I worked, and already it has been invaluable as I know my roses will be safe from knocks and wobbles.

The rose on the right has four petals and the one one the left has 9. These roses have to be made in stages to make sure that the weight of all of the petals doesn't cause them to droop. I will finish them off tomorrow.

The first stage of the roses is complete. They will now need to dry overnight.

I am using a plunger cutter to make the butterflies for one set of the cupcakes. I read somewhere about using a concertina of paper to set them on so they have a more lifelike look, so I folded a sheet of A4 to make a drying rack. I will paint the details with some lilac food colouring and then dust them with pearl lustre once they are dry.

The other set of cupcakes is having hand moulded roses as their decoration. This is a simpler way of making roses that are slightly less detailed, however they still look just as effective. I like the slightly frilly edges of the icing as it gives them a pretty vintage look. Once these are dry they will also be dusted with pearl lustre.