How to make this 60-person wedding cake

I can’t imagine many of you are going to make this recipe, but just in case someone has been put in charge of making a wedding cake or a large cake for an event, I thought I’d write it up. This is a 26x9-inch berry-vanilla cake made with vanilla sponge, a silky crème mousseline (vanilla custard whipped with butter), homemade strawberry-raspberry jam, and an abundance of fresh raspberries and strawberries.

Please keep in mind that the recipe as a whole is fairly loose–I completely lost count of how many berries I used for the top and inside of the cake. The individual components, however, the cake layers, SMBC, crème mousseline, and jam, are recipes I’ve made and used many times. I’ve broken everything down the way I made it, over three separate days. You could combine two of the days if you want, but I found this to be the least stressful approach. Don’t hesitate to message me in the chat if you have questions as you make it!

If you want to make this cake, but a smaller one, make a 13x9-inch cake and just halve the entire recipe.

Tips:

• SMBC is fine at room temperature for 1 to 2 days, so you don’t need to refrigerate it overnight after Day 1. This saves you from having to soften and re-temper it the next morning.

• The amount of butter you add to the custard for the mousseline depends on the final weight of your custard. For reference, my custard weighed 651g, and I used a 2:1 custard-to-butter ratio to keep it a little lighter than a traditional mousseline –so I used half the weight of the custard in butter (about 325g). A few tablespoons more or less won’t make a significant difference.

• If you don’t have a fridge large enough for a 30x14-inch cake board, assemble two separate 13x9-inch cakes on individual 13x9-inch cake boards and refrigerate them separately. When you’re ready to do the final decorating, place them side by side on the large decorative board. Using the same-size boards means they’ll be hidden underneath, and you won’t need to move the cakes off them.

Watch the behind-the-scenes