How to.

I think I filled about four notebook pages of plans, sketches, recipes, and ideas when I first started to work on my grandparents anniversary cake.

I'd never made a cake of this magnitude so I was super nervous.  Plus, it was for a very important occasion so it had to be just so.

Not knowing exactly how long it was going to take me, I decided to use box cake mixes rather than making the cake from scratch.  A friend of mine told me that there was a trick to making the box cake mixes more dense so I googled, "making a denser cake mix."

I freakin' love the internet.

I found lots of different suggestions but this is the one I ended up using and here's how I made it:

1 box cake mix (I used French Vanilla)

1/2 c whole milk

1/3 c oil

4 eggs

1 small box of pudding ( I used French Vanilla here also)

I referred to Wilton.com quite a bit to get the cooking time for the two different cake pans that I used. (6 x 2, 10 x 2)  In total, I ended up using 3 boxes of cake mix and 3 boxes of pudding.

For the filling I found this recipe for a Chocolate-Strawberry Ganache on Epicurious.com.

After reading some of the comments, I upped the strawberry jam to 1 1/4 cups.

(This recipe made way more than I needed for my cake but I think it would be awesome as a filling for cupcakes or just the frosting for any cake.  It was so yummy!)

After leveling my cake I made my ring of buttercream to keep the filling from squirting out once I put the other layer on.

Once the other layer was added I did a super thin coat crumb coat with buttercream.

Then I frosted the bottom tier and took the cake board for the top tier and traced around it.

I put about 6 straws inside the border of the line I traced as a support for the top tier.

Once the two tiers were stacked on top of each other, I used a wooden dowel rod to insure there would be no sliding of layers.

(Please excuse the disaster that is my kitchen counter.)

Once both tiers were frosted I used another trick I learned on the internet to smooth the buttercream.  I took a Ziploc bag and carefully laid it against the side of the cake and then used my finger to smooth out the icing.  Best.trick.ever.  Seriously, the buttercream ended up looking more like fondant.

I decorated the cake with ribbon, edible pearls, and the cake topper my aunt picked out.

Everyone loved it.  The only downside was the edible pearls...not quite so edible.  They were like tiny jawbreakers.  I'm totally thinking about making this my new hobby.  I'd forgotten just how much fun it is to get creative.