Scheduling the Production of a Wedding or Specialty Cake

A sample schedule is given below.

This schedule is designed for lighter, freshly made cakes. Rich, dense British- or Australian-style cakes are often allowed to mature and ripen for weeks, meaning that the cake can be baked well ahead of time. For any cake, most of the time-consuming decorations can be made well in advance as long as there are adequate dry storage facilities. Creating the décor for the cake generally must begin several days prior to assembling and serving both because of the time involved in the decoration and the time required for royal icing string work to dry. Do not refrigerate this type of cake; the sugar decorations will melt.