A Short Story:
Monday afternoon James called to see if I could make a wedding cake by Wednesday. I've never made a wedding cake, and in fact my only cake experience is when I do my kids birthday cakes. I did take course 1 of a cake decorating class almost 10 years ago, when my sister was teaching it...so I have some very basic knowledge of cake decorating, but that is not much of a resume.
There wasn't another option to get a cake done that fast so I agreed to try.
It wasn't perfect, but it turned out much better than I expected.
A Few Details for Longer Story:
The good friend of James' mentor has cancer and was going to have Surgery on Thursday. Apparently he and his girlfriend decided they wanted to hurry and get married before the surgery, so they were throwing a last minute wedding. James' mentor (Carlotta) offered to take care of the cake and asked what they wanted. They requested a typical English Wedding cake, which is a type of fruit cake. She called around to bakeries and apparently everyone told her they needed at least 6 weeks notice.
I wasn't comfortable trying to make the cake (I didn't even know what all the ingredients were on the recipe). Carlotta agreed to make the cakes and bring me the supplies if I would decorate it.
As a side note. To me, and English wedding cake looks and smells terrible. I can't imagine wanting to eat that. Ever. But, I guess if you grew up with it, it could be good. Maybe.
She brought over the cakes and frosting supplies Tuesday afternoon. I spend Tuesday making marzipan (and almond paste frosting that has to cover the fruit cake) and frosting. I called my sister (the real wedding cake decorator) for some ideas and pep talk.
The Marzipan is supposed to sit in the fridge for 24 hours, or all night...but I didn't actually have that much time. So Tuesday night I rolled out the marzipan to cover the cakes. I made some fondant, but it was too dry and didn't roll well, so I sent James to the store Wednesday morning to buy some more fondant to finish covering the cake.
I had all 4 kids on Wednesday as I decorated. It was a little bit of chaos at our house, but we all survived. The cake got picked up, and I did a huge sigh of relief.
The End.
3 comments:
Wholly cow! The cake looks AMAZING!! Good job Meg!
You are amazing! I can't imagine trying to do a wedding cake on less than two days' notice. Great job!
Thank you Megan or all the hard work on the English Wedding Cake. Ithought you might want to hear words of Thanks directly from the Bride below:
Just want to thank everyone for everything you did to make the last week such a success. Unbelievable how you all rallied round and make everything come together. Judge Lilibet gave Barry and me such an unbelievably beautiful present by officiating at the ceremony and writing such a touching, personal tribute to the two of us, and Carlotta for all her sisterly support and creating a REAL English Wedding Cake with help from her graduate students wife, Megan; Penny and Del urging me on to take care of the things I had to take care of before Thursday and giving me their undying support; Elizabethan Liz (sorry Liz - I just thought of that) creating her beautiful salmon and vegetarian wonders; Marek Zebrowski's fabulous crazy antics at the piano helped by his cellist - they set the right joyous, upbeat tone to the whole affair; Steve, who has known Barry since they were kids and who is a faithful Armadillo; Urs Rutishauser, whom most of you don't know but who originally wrote "The Monster and the Maiden", was the one who consulted with a friend at Sloan-Kettering and told us about Barry's marvelous surgeon - Dr. Linda Liau - Obviously she did a fabulous job as Barry is now home and we have already played a Mozart Sonata together - THANK YOU DR. LIAU!!; Janice Fogg, our trust attorney who bent over backwards to get some important papers signed one hour before the wedding - her poor dog was waiting for her to pick him up at the veterinarian; and all the other faithful friends - you know who you are - and last, but certainly not least, our three sons, daughters in law and Malia, our precious flower girl, ring bearer and granddaughter.
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