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Navy & Silver Wedding Cake
Perfect for winter or navy-themed weddings - if you want a DIY wedding cake- here's my recipe for a gorgeous Navy & Silver wedding cake!
Servings: 24 servings
Calories: 782kcal
Equipment
- 1 10 inch cardboard cake circle (or 8 inch circle; I found 10 inches easiest for transport purposes)
- 1 6 inch cardboard cake circle (I prefer Wilton's center-punched circles to make stacking the tiers easier!)
- Kitchen scale (optional, but recommended)
- Ruler (to stack tiers evenly) (to stack tiers evenly)
- Flowers – real or silk – to decorate (I bought a few shades of navy, blue, and white flowers at my local Hobby Lobby, but there are similar flowers at other craft stores)
- small piping bag + small round tip (to decorate; linked is a set that contains both)
Ingredients
White Vanilla Cake Layers
- 4 ⅞ cups all-purpose flour
- 4 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 3 ¾ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 1 ½ cups unsalted butter (or 3 sticks, room temperature)
- 1 ½ cups egg whites (about 10 eggs, or use egg whites from a carton to avoid wasting the yolks)
- 2 ¼ cups buttermilk (room temperature)
- 2 ½ teaspoons clear vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting
- 12 ounces cream cheese (one and a half packages; softened)
- 1 ½ cups unsalted butter (three sticks; softened)
- 9+ cups powdered sugar
- 3-5 Tablespoons milk
- 1 Tablespoon clear vanilla extract
- 4-5 large drops Navy gel food color (I love Americolor Navy, though you can also use a mix of blue, black, and purple)
Decorations
- Silver edible decorating spray (you can use an airbrush, but I found the spray worked just fine)
Instructions
White Vanilla Cake Layers
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare three 8-inch cake pans and three 6-inch round pans with baker's floured cooking spray, or grease and line with parchment rounds.
- Mix together all dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt) in a stand mixer with a paddle until fully combined. Mix chunks of room-temperature butter slowly into the dry mix, on a low speed. Continue to mix until no large chunks of butter remain, and the mixture looks crumbly.
- Pour in egg whites and mix on low until just incorporated. Mix in the buttermilk in two parts, on a low speed. Add in vanilla and oil, and mix on low until fully incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula, then beat on medium speed for about 30 seconds.
- Divide batter evenly between prepared pans. (I recommend using a kitchen scale, and adding 675 grams of batter into each of your 8” pans. Divide remaining batter evenly between the remaining three 6” pans – I had about 300 grams in each of my smaller pans. Using the kitchen scale guarantees your layers will bake to be the same height.)
- Bake for 34-37 minutes, (or until a toothpick comes out clean). Allow cake layers to cool for 10-15 minutes on a wire cooling rack before removing from pans. Cool completely before frosting. Set in the fridge or freezer to accelerate the cooling process if desired. (This is a great time to make your frosting.)
- Once the layers have fully cooled, they can be leveled and any caramelized bits can be trimmed from the sides / top of the cake using a serrated knife if desired. (Be sure the layers are completely cooled or chilled before trimming; if layers are cut while still warm they may crumble or break.)
Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting
- Beat together softened cream cheese and butter; slowly add in powdered sugar alternating with milk until frosting reaches desired consistency. Add vanilla and beat until well combined. (Save gel food color until after your top tier is frosted).
Assembly
- Place a smear of frosting on your large cake circle (to keep the cake from sliding while you decorate it) and center your first 8-inch cake layer in the center of the circle. Spread the layer with frosting. Add your next cake layer on top, and repeat the process with your remaining cake layers.
- Next, repeat the same process with your smaller cardboard circle and cake layers. Of note – if your circles aren’t pre-center-punched, be sure to grab a dowel or straw and make your own hole in the exact center of the circle! This will allow you to center the tier on the base tier later on.
- Now you're ready to crumb-coat . If you're unfamiliar with crumb-coating, it's just what it sounds like – spreading a thin layer of frosting over the entire outside of the cake tiers to keep crumbs out of your final layer.
- Once your crumb coat has set (this takes about 5-10 minutes in the fridge), add a final layer of frosting to the 6-inch cake tier and smooth. (I like to use an offset spatula and cake scraper).
- (Frosting note - I struggled a bit getting the sides smoothed on my smaller cake tier. Trimming the layers just smaller than the cake circle and using the cardboard as a guide for my cake scraper worked well.)
- Color remaining frosting navy blue. Cover 8-inch base tier with navy frosting and smooth. Transfer remaining frosting to a small piping bag fitted with a piping tip of your choice (I used a small round tip).
- Cover top tier with edible silver spray – I found it best to do this in several light coats, because if you put it on too heavy it will drip! You only need about 5-8 minutes for each light layer to dry (at least at my humidity level in the PNW winter). Allow to dry completely once you’re happy with the shade of silver.
Stacking the tiers
- ‘How to Make a Tiered Cake’ by Chelsweets is still my favorite video tutorial to date – sometimes seeing the process can be very helpful!
- (Basically, doweling a tiered cake is done to ensure that the top tier doesn’t crush the lower tier, as well as keeping it centered. I used four shorter cut-to-height plastic straws for my base tier dowels, and one taller one cut at an angle in the center to hold my top tier in place.)
- Grab your ruler for this next part! To center a 6-inch cake on top of an 8-inch cake, push the straws down into the base tier just over one inch from the cake edge, placing them evenly at quarter intervals around the cake. Place your last, tallest straw or dowel into the exact center of the cake, making sure to keep it straight up as you press down.
- Now you’re ready – center the hole in the bottom of your top tier cake circle over the tallest dowel and let the top tier gently down onto the base tier. The dowel will poke into the center of the top tier to hold it in place.
Decorating
- If the cake circle under the top tier is showing, pipe a small rim of navy frosting onto the base of the top tier over the circle to hide it.
- Add your flowers at offset intervals on the top, between the tiers, and at the base of the cake – I found it easiest to place the largest flowers first and then fill in around them!
- Annnd you’re done! Find someone to give you a high-five! (Shoot me a DM on Instagram if you can’t find anyone right away!)
Video
Notes
(Please note nutrition information is an estimate and may not be exactly accurate. Counts will be lower in all fields if the entire batch of frosting is not used.)
Nutrition
Serving: 1serving | Calories: 782kcal | Carbohydrates: 101g | Protein: 9g | Fat: 38g
Mentioned in post -
Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting
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