Grace Kelly Wedding Cake Recipe

This classic white and gold wedding cake is the perfect bake for traditional couples - we love its simple elegance. It may take some time to complete, but the results will be well worth it.

Ingredients

For the chocolate fudge cake:

(one 20-cmx8-inch cake)

• 100 g/3½ oz. good quality (70% cocoa solids) dark chocolate, broken into pieces
• 200 ml/¾ cup whole milk
• 225 g/1 cup packed plus
• 2 tablespoons light muscovado sugar
• 75 g/5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, or to taste
• a pinch of salt
• 125 g/1 cup plain flour
• 25 g/3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda/baking soda

For the rich chocolate buttercream:

• 100 g/6½ tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 175 g/1¼ cups icing sugar
• 100 g/3½ oz. good quality (70% cocoa solids) dark chocolate, melted and cooled
• a splash of milk (optional)

For the decoration:

• marzipan
• white sugar paste
• a cake drum 8 cm/3 inches larger than the base tier
• 1.5-cm/¾-inch wide white satin ribbon
• 1 quantity Royal Icing
• snowflake and champagne edible lustre dusts
• rejuvenator fluid

You will also need:

• 2 x 20-cm/8-inch shallow round cake pans, greased and lined
• a thin round cake board the same size as the cake
• a piping bag fitted with
• a medium–fine nozzle/tip
• a cake turntable
• a small paintbrush

Method

1. To make the chocolate fudge cake, prepare all 3 tiers of your cakes   Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan)/350°F (325°F fan)/Gas 4   Put the chocolate, milk and a third of the sugar in a saucepan set over a gentle heat. Stir until the chocolate and sugar have melted, then remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly   In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and the remaining sugar until pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs, followed by the vanilla and salt, then whisk in the chocolate milk. Sift the dry ingredients over the batter and fold in gently   Divide the batter between your cake pans and bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean   Leave the cakes to cool in their pans, set on a wire rack, for 10 minutes before turning out onto the rack to cool completely  
2. To make the buttercream, whisk the butter for a few seconds until pale and creamy, then sift over half of the icing sugar and whisk again until all combined. Add the melted and cooled chocolate and whisk through before sifting over the remaining icing/confectioners’ sugar. Whisk for a few minutes, adding a splash of milk to slightly slacken the buttercream, if you need to
3. Level the cakes, if necessary, then attach one of the cakes to the cake board with a small blob of buttercream. Sandwich the cakes together with half of the buttercream, then spread the remaining buttercream over the top and sides of the cake with a palette knife and leave to set.
4. To decorate, cover your 3 cake tiers with marzipan followed by sugarpaste, then cover your cake drum in the same white sugar paste Rod and stack the cake, then ribbon the cake and the cake drum Fill the piping bag with the royal icing and place your prepared cake on a turntable. Starting with the top tier, just above the ribbon, pipe even sized pearls in rows of between 1 and 5, all the way around the cake. To create a pearl, hold your bag so that the nozzle/tip is facing, head-on, the point on the cake that you want to ice, without actually touching it. Gently apply a little pressure with your thumb at a steady rate. Once you have created a pearl of the desired size, release the pressure and remove the nozzle quickly. If you have unwanted high peaks on your pearls, you can use a paintbrush dampened with water to smooth them out Once you have created an initial line of pearls, continue to pipe more randomly. Think of falling raindrops, or the game Tetris. There should be more pearls gathered at the bottom of the tier, so the top of each cake will be less crowded with pearls Continue piping randomly with single and joined groups of pearls over the top of the cake Repeat the process all around the sides of the middle and base tiers, then pipe a few pearls on the iced cake drum for design unity. By the time you have finished piping the cake drum, the top tier will have set and be ready to be hand painted In a small bowl, mix half and half of snowflake and champagne lustre dusts. Add enough rejuvenator fluid to the lustre powder to create a paint, then mix together with the paintbrush Carefully dab each piped pearl with the lustre. You really don’t need very much so don’t overload your paintbrush or you may risk it dripping onto the white icing. As you work, the alcohol will evaporate from the lustre dust, so you will need to top it up every now and then with a little more rejuvenator fluid