Wedding cakes

A wedding cake is the one thing at a wedding that has to be right at exactly one moment, so we make one a Saturday and Seren drives it there herself. The design starts with an hour at the shop or on a video call and a tasting box; the price starts on the estimate page, which does the same arithmetic we do.

The finishes: buttercream is Swiss meringue, smooth or textured, and takes fresh flowers and gold leaf well; it is the most popular and £3.80 a serving. Fondant is rolled sugar paste over a layer of ganache, perfectly smooth, the finish for lace, piping and sugar flowers and for a hot day, £4.60 a serving and a week longer to make. Naked has the buttercream scraped thin so the sponge shows, best with fruit and foliage, and £3.20 a serving. A design fee by the tier count covers the structure, the dowels and the boards: £20 for one tier up to £100 for five.

Flavours are any of the twelve on the tasting list, a different one per tier if you like: Victoria, lemon and elderflower, chocolate and salted caramel, red velvet, carrot and walnut, raspberry and white chocolate, and Gwenllian's bara brith cake with a Welsh-whisky buttercream that is ordered by about a third of couples. Delivery and set-up within fifteen miles of Caerphilly are free (Cardiff, Newport, Pontypridd and the valleys between) and a pound a mile beyond. A deposit of twenty-five per cent holds the Saturday; the rest is due a month before.

The twelve flavours

• VictoriaVanilla sponge, raspberry jam, vanilla buttercreamVegan · Gluten-free
• Lemon and elderflowerLemon sponge, elderflower syrup, lemon curdVegan · Gluten-free
• Chocolate and salted caramelDark chocolate sponge, salted caramel, chocolate buttercreamVegan · Gluten-free
• Red velvetCocoa and buttermilk, cream-cheese buttercreamVegan
• Carrot and walnutSpiced carrot, walnuts, orange cream-cheese buttercreamVegan
• Raspberry and white chocolateVanilla sponge, fresh raspberries, white chocolateVegan · Gluten-free
• The bara brith cakeSpiced fruit sponge, tea-soaked fruit, Penderyn buttercreamVegan
• Coffee and walnutEspresso sponge, coffee buttercream, candied walnutsVegan · Gluten-free
• Strawberries and creamVanilla sponge, Gower strawberries, vanilla creamVegan · Gluten-free
• Lemon and blueberryLemon sponge, blueberry compoteVegan · Gluten-free
• Chocolate orangeChocolate sponge, orange zest, dark ganacheVegan · Gluten-free
• Honey and rhubarbRudry honey sponge, poached rhubarb, honey buttercreamVegan · Gluten-free

What is included

• One to five tiers, twelve to two hundred and twenty servings
• Buttercream, fondant or naked
• A free consultation and the tasting box
• Delivered and set up by Seren
• Free within fifteen miles of Caerphilly
• One wedding cake a Saturday

What it costs

A two-tier buttercream for forty £190; a three-tier for eighty £365; a four-tier fondant for a hundred and thirty £680; a five-tier buttercream for two hundred £860. Prices are rounded to the nearest five pounds. Sugar flowers from £60, fresh flowers at cost from your florist. The estimate page works out any combination. The estimate page works out any wedding cake from the tiers, the finish and the servings, with the lead time and the next free Saturday.