Four tiers. Chocolate ganache icing. Alternating layers of white cake with fresh strawberry-vanilla filling and chocolate cake with coffee butter filling. Fresh flowers.
     Amy Lawlor’s recipe for wedding cakes is simple elegance. Professor Lawlor teaches English literature at Skyline College and bakes wedding cakes on the side. “The wedding cake reflects the style and tastes of the bride and groom,” said Amy about a recent cake she baked for Professor Karen Wong’s wedding. “They both love chocolate and the fresh flowers – fiery orange dahlias and white freesias – complimented the elegance of the evening wedding.”
     Lawlor began cooking and baking as a child. She became the family baker and made the pies, cookies, and cakes for family gatherings and special occasions. In college, she worked at a Baskin Robbins. She learned to decorate the ice cream cakes and did her job well. She soon became the store’s cake decorator.
     Lawlor’s cakes are as heavy as they look. They are vibrant with fresh flowers and the satin sheen of buttercream or ganache frosting. Two people are required to lift the bottom tier. Each tier is transported in individual boxes and assembled at the reception. Wooden dowels support each tier. Each tier is made up of two layers of cake with filling in between.
     Assembly time takes about an hour. Lawlor says that she can make the old fashioned wedding cake with columns and frosting flowers, but she prefers the simple, monochromatic, fresh flower look of her cakes. Fresh flowers are the only contrasting color to the icing and decorative piping around the cake.
     Lawlor once hauled a wedding cake to Muir Beach in a pickup truck. It was three tiers of white cake with vanilla buttercream and fresh blackberry filling. The trip down the mountain on Highway 1 was long and winding. She had cars backed up behind her for several miles, but she wasn’t going to risk her wedding cake by speeding. The cake arrived beautiful and sound.
     Another time, she had gotten some of the buttercream frosting on the bottom of a cardboard round. She stacked the tiers and left the cake on a table. The table was a bit lopsided. The day was warm. The cardboard round was buttery and slippery. After the ceremony when she returned to check on the cake, the cake was leaning dangerously to one side. She and a friend managed to shim up the table and straighten the cake before anyone arrived in the dining room.
     What about the taste? Lawlor ‘s cakes have girth, but are wonderfully light and moist, the nuance of which can’t be matched in a commercial kitchen. “I love the creativity involved in baking a wedding cake. To be a part of a wedding – a happy, positive event – the look and taste of the cake, the baking and design; it all combines into a creative outlet for me.”
     Her cakes serve about 150 guests, depending on the size of the slice; the cost may be about $3.00 to $5.00 a slice. This is in comparison to most bakeries that charge $5.00 to $8.00 per slice. For further details about her wedding cakes, you may email her at [email protected] or contact her in the English Literature Department at Skyline College