sake, Trish has limited answering calls from mom to just one a day. The new phone technique I have implemented has been to preface each of my calls home with, "I can't talk, just answer 'yes' or 'no'."On top of the never-ending calls, guess what idiot volunteered to bake the wedding cake? Moi, of course. OK, so my wedding cake experience is basically nada, unless you count having seen every episode of "Ace of Cakes" as "experience". It's not that I'm a stranger to my oven; I in fact bake a mean batch of brownies (from scratch, thank you very much) and am no stranger to the virtues of parchment paper on a cookie sheet. But we're talking 250 hungry guests, half of whom are Filipino and therefore have never uttered the words, "No thank you, I'm full."
When I agreed to supply what most couples would consider the centerpiece for the evening, the date was nearly a year away. I thought I had plenty of time to bone up on my piping skills and fondant rolling technique, and by "bone up" I mean "learn." But a year sure does fly by quickly and now I'm scrambling to find a way to create an incredible culinary masterpiece with basically no cake decorating skills. Luckily, we were able to talk mom into letting us present a fake cake so at least what's under the icing can be bought and carved out of Styrofoam. Any ideas? I hear that you can use spackling compound instead of buttercream icing, but I want to make sure that the cake looks real. I had grand ideas of making each gum paste flower myself and individually painting the detailed leaves. Screw that. I'm gonna' have to see if the craft store has them pre-made or if I can go to a bakery and get some made for me. Suggestions would be most grateful.
I've already experimented and come up with the "real" cake which will be "hiding" in the kitchen, pre-sliced, until the fake one is carted off the dance floor. It will be a white cake with butter cream icing and either/both strawberry and cherry topping. It got the thumbs up from Juan, Val, Trish and Trish's friend Billy (who was in this week from Virginia and got screwed because of the Broadway strike) and turned out even better than I expected considering my measly budget. I won't reveal the secret recipe until after the big event in case anyone attending ends up reading this. I don't want to ruin the experience for anyone. So you'll just have to keep posted if interested.
2 comments:
Mom just called. That's her "one" for today. She mentioned the cake. I stopped her before my ears started bleeding and I curled into the fetal position. That cake was pretty darn delicious tho. PS: She wants almond extract. Have fun!
Almond extract? Is she on crack? She'll be lucky if there's a fake cake sitting there on Saturday. The best I can do is almond flavored spackling compound.
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