Cutting The Cake

In college I discovered a passion for baking and decorating cakes. Unfortunately by day I was paying good money to study Mass Media Communication. By night I was studying cake techniques at what I called “University de YouTube”.

Cake making became a stress outlet throughout each term that reared its head strongest during finals weeks. My classmates and teachers loved when I got stressed out because I’d show up to class with plates of treats or an entire cake with a basket full of plates, forks, napkins and a serving knife. I’m pretty sure some of those classes were passed because the the extra credit cake points I’d racked up throughout the semester.

I began getting cake orders through word of mouth. Birthdays, graduations, baby showers, and weddings. On more than once occasion, I could be found sitting on an airplane with a cake on my lap as my carryon headed to a special event with my very special luggage. I had a kitchen with lots of counter space where I lived with my longtime boyfriend. Our kitchen was always full of ingredients and cake making tools of all shapes, sizes and uses. It was a labor of love that I didn’t charge nearly enough for.

The wedding cakes brought me the most joy but were also the most stressful because I wanted them to be perfect. Such an important event and in my opinion, the cake is a main focal point at a wedding coming in at a close 2nd to the bride. It gets put on display, photographed and goes into family albums looked back at for generations to come. People get to see the bride towards the beginning of the wedding, but the cake has to be anticipated and waited for until nearly the end.

I always knew I wanted to make my own wedding cake. People warned me that as a bride I’d be way too busy to make the cake for my own wedding. I’d planned versions of my wedding cake for years but after nearly a decade with my partner and no wedding, we separated and I moved 1,000 miles away to a tiny studio house in sunny California. My new kitchen counter was a wooden board that would lay flat against the wall attached by a hinge and could be pulled out to use only if I was the only person in the room. Literally and figuratively I was in a dark place. There was no more room for cake making and I no longer felt the desire to bake anyways. The cabinet stayed closed for years.

As it’s been said, time heals all wounds and that rang true for me too! When I began online dating, I eventually met someone special. After getting to know each other a while, he’s send pics of his kids and I’d send him pics of my cakes. He called me his Queen and I adored his children. We got engaged and moved into another very small house with a very small kitchen. However, this house had space for a real kitchen table and I insisted on a stainless steel prep table I found online from a restaurant liquidation sale. My light was back I was ready to start baking again!

Wedding planning is stressful, feeding 2 growing boys is expensive and the cake I envisioned for my wedding was simply not feasible with the amount of work that needed to get done with wedding planning as well as running my new household. People were correct when they said I was going to be too busy to bake my own wedding cake. I was having a hard time accepting the reality. Hiring someone to make the cake of my dreams was financially out of the question. We had picked a wedding photographer who was just starting out so that we could save money. I got a used wedding dress off a resale app. We picked up an old vending machine as a cheaper and unique alternative to a bartender. I bought wood from the clearance section of the building supplies store to build my own arch. I was determined to have the most beautiful wedding I could thrift and I was willing to do the planning and legwork myself in order to have it all.

I was searching through a another resale app and saw 7 round styrofoam pieces of different sizes called ‘cake dummies’. The lightbulb in my head lit up and I made immediate plans to meet up with the seller an hour away. I got home and dug through the garage to pull out my art bin. Ruler, fabric, hot glue, Fiskar Scissors, beads, feathers, ribbon, more glue; the works! I was going to be able to make my own wedding cake after all!

A seven tiered cake seemed fitting for an old cake queen. I got to work sketching out ideas and designs in the half used sketchbook from the art bin. It would be grand with gold and white alternating layers. There would be fairy lights and it would sit on crystal pedastal dish my grandma had sent as an engagement present. After weeks of working on my cake in the evenings when the housework was done and the kids were asleep, the top 3 and bottom 3 layers had been decided and executed to perfection. 1000+ hand glued pearls on top, gold foil Christmas ribbon from the 1980’s, fabric from a table runner and other “ingredients” had made their way into the layers. The middle layer was left and it needed to be gold to match the color scheme. I was out of ideas.

One evening my fiancée came in the room while I was brainstorming and digging through art supplies. “My Queen,” he said, “It’s late and you asked me to remind you that you have an early morning tomorrow.” In the beginning I was embarrassed when he’d call me his Queen but I had also never experienced real love before him and eventually learned to accept my mushy-in-love title. His words sparked the final needed lightbulb moment and the last cake tier was decided.

I grabbed the scissors and some 12x12 sheets of gold glitter paper. I measured and drew precise lines on the back to make a grid. The paper had to be cut perfectly for this to work and not look like a kindergarten art project. After numerous lines, measurements and cutting, I placed the gold paper, a nod to the Queen’s crown, around the final cake tier. I had made my own, beautiful, twinkling, fabulous, and completely inedible wedding cake and to me, it was perfect.