“A CAKE, Franck, is made of flour and water!”

Teach us, Steve.

Oh, if only it were so simple.

My darling younger sister announced her engagement to me at the end of March. Or rather, she and her fiancé stood at the foot of my bed in our shared apartment as she asked with puffy eyes if I had a moment to “talk”. I said yes and braced myself against the duvet.

“We’re moving in together.”

“Oh.” I was surprised. I was expecting a break-up or a pregnancy or a religious conversion, “Okay.”

“And we’re engaged!!!!” Well, that was more like it.

They were concerned I’d be distraught by the prospect of losing my roommate of 4 years to marriage. After effusive hugs and tears and sputtered congratulations, I was more concerned with the cake. Where did they plan on getting it?

They hadn’t really thought further than “marriage” at that point, so I took the opportunity to pounce on pastry detail. Knowing that I had never made a multi-tiered, fondanted and sugar flowered confection before, they generously agreed that I could be trusted to make The Most Important Cake of Their Lives.  And then they decided they would be married at the end of August (THIS August) and I had my first cake-related anxiety pang ever.

If I were a good Catholic, I would have already known about Saint Martha and I would have lit a candle and started in on the praying immediately. But I am more of a bad WASP, so I turned to our patron saint Martha: Martha Stewart. And her gorgeous tome, Wedding Cakes:

Everything is under control. Under control, damn it!

And so an obsession was born. The book is beautiful and inspirational and basically soft porn for the sweets-obsessed.

In fact, I was so consumed by the intricacies of my task and the impressiveness of the book that I made what can fairly be considered one of the largest tactical dating errors ever made by a single female. Late one evening, after a few too many drinks at a party, I pored over the entire Wedding Cakes book with a fellow I’d met only hours before and had ensnared in my single girl’s apartment full of wedding planning binders and a single but omnipresent fluffy white lapdog.

“Ooooh, look at that one, isn’t it AMAYY-ZING?? The FONDANT, I mean JESUS, it’s ART! And the tiny pink sugar flowers??! So cuuuuute. Oh, you don’t know what fondant is??  Well fondant is basically a layer of rolled sugar that you…” etc. I’m still cringeing. And the fellow’s still around actually, so I should probably get over it, but really.

Keep Calm and Carry On, as they say.

So, I began talking flavors with the bride: cake, frosting, filling, fondant. And colors: gold, white, blue. And design: shape, tiers, flowers, patterns. I began dreaming of wedding cakes and the closer I came to actually having to put batter to pan and bake cake, the less Wedding Cakes came to represent comfort and calm so much as a lifetime of pastry perfecting that I did not possess and SHE’S MARTHA GOD DAMN STEWART WHO THE HELL DO I THINK I AM???

But, a cake, Franck, is made of flour and water. Yes, so true Steve Martin in Father of the Bride. So I breathed deeply and I made more buttercream than is seemly:

Really, that's only about half of it.

And I made a delegation of mini-cakes to represent various flavor combinations. Lemon poppyseed pound cake with apricot preserve filling and vanilla custard buttercream, chocolate cake with raspberry custard buttercream filling and dark chocolate frosting, and chocolate cake with dark chocolate filling and dark chocolate frosting:

Please note the excess buttercream

And then I attempted to use as much of the leftover buttercream and batter as possible and made a batch of cupcakes to bring along to a friend’s birthday party (which also doubled as the wedding cake tasting as both future bride and groom attended). I also played with gumpaste for the first time and made some rudimentary – but recognizable! – flowers:

The blue wax polka dots are NOT part of the wedding cake concept.

A verdict was reached and now “all” I have to do is master fondant, tiering, realistic sugar flower poppies and my anxiety. Oh, and I have to continue living among the civilized masses and not simply hole up in my steamy apartment covered in confectioner’s sugar with my panting dog and a trash can full of delights that would make a small child weep from the injustice of it all.

Deep breath… flour and water, flour and water…

TO BE CONTINUED

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