[wcm_nonmember]<!– –><div style="text-align: center"><!– –><img src="https://cdn.sorted.club/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Bucket-List-graphic.png" alt="" scale="0" style="max-width: 30%; margin-top: 20px"><!– –><!– –><h2><!– –>Unlock this Story<!– –></h2><!– –><p style="padding-bottom:25px"><!– –>Stories from the 'Bucket List' book are only available to members<!– –></p><!– –><a class="et_pb_button" background-color: #ffffff"<!– –>href="/product/digital-club-membership/">join the club</a><!– –></div><!– –><!– –>[/wcm_nonmember]<!– –><!– –>[wcm_restrict]<!– –><!– –><div class="page" title="Page 44"><!– –><div class="section"><!– –><div class="layoutArea"><!– –><div class="column"><!– –><!– –><p>The saying ‘a labour of love’ couldn’t be more apt when describing a wedding cake. Firstly and most obviously, the cake is part of a celebration of a day about love. Secondly, if <b>you agree to make a wedding cake</b> even though you have never made one before and you’ve simply been asked because one of you ‘knows some chefs and makes food on YouTube’ you have to really like, perhaps even love, the couple in question.</p><!– –><!– –><p>This is the situation that Mike and his girlfriend Kirsty found themselves in. He doesn’t remember the decision making process after being asked to do it. It was almost as if they’d dreamt of thinking it through and deemed it not only realistic, but something they were confident of doing well. Then woken up realising they’d said yes and now had to work out how they were not going to ruin what should be <b>the best day of two people’s lives</b>.</p><!– –><!– –><p>So they practiced. A lot. The recipe was a scaled up and tweaked version of the ‘Delicious Chocolate Cake’ that Mike made for a Sorted Ultimate Battle. The brief from the couple was essentially “we like naked cakes but we will love whatever you make, even if it goes terribly wrong and you buy a Colin the Caterpillar cake”, so external pressure was non-existent which was really nice.</p><!– –><!– –><p>They decided to make macarons too. Thirty-six of the little idiots. Salted caramel and Prosecco flavoured; technical, demanding, <b>fiddly little almond idiots</b>. Eight kilos of butter, one hundred and eighty macaron shells, forty-three hours, four kilograms of white chocolate, sixteen sponges and one tiny meltdown later and they had their cake.</p><!– –><!– –><p>For Mike, this is absolutely a bucket list recipe not only because of the enormity of the dish itself but because <b>it was a huge honour and achievement</b> that he never thought he’d be asked to do, or actually pull off, and therefore one of the most rewarding things he has ever done.</p><!– –><!– –><p>This recipe is for just one layer of the epic cake Mike and Kirsty made. They scaled it all the way up to 3 layers for the special day but this single layer could be made for any special occasion.</p><!– –><!– –></div><!– –></div><!– –></div><!– –></div><!– –><!– –>[/wcm_restrict]