Bake an extravagant cake

“This is hands-down my favorite cake of all time, made for my friend Kelly’s first baby shower (her baby is now in middle school!). Our friend Jen (party planner extraordinaire) asked me to make a cake using Kelly’s theme – Noah’s Ark. I spent weeks before the shower hand-piping each of those animals out of royal icing and crafting the ark out of gingerbread. I’m still amazed at how cute those little animals all turned out. Days before the shower, I baked the cakes. The night before (I’ve always preferred to work at night), I began to assemble the cake. First, I assembled the bottom tiers. Then I placed the boat cake on top (which was made from half of a football-shaped pan), and decorated everything. Lastly, I thought it would be a good idea to stabilize the layers by inserting a dowel all the way through the center of the tiers. This would prove to be my fatal mistake. About an hour later (around midnight), I noticed that the boat cake had split in half and was beginning to crumble onto the round layer beneath. All the frosting in the world wasn’t going to fix it. My husband was just getting out of work, so I called him frantically crying, begging him to go to the store and buy me shortening, powdered sugar, eggs, and another box of cake mix. When he finally got home with the goods it was around 1:00am, and I had to bake another boat cake, allow it to cool, and then finish decorating the whole thing. Yes, I was up all night. I went to the shower later that morning, having gotten no sleep at all. But that cake looked AWESOME!”

“I started laughing as I considered the fact that four years later, I was still screwing up. But I couldn’t be in a bad mood. In a way, this seemed like a better representation of 17 and Baking than anything else: the ability to laugh at your mistakes, learn from them, and persevere. I didn’t have any more hazelnuts or berries, so I shrugged and started again with almonds and lemon. I’d learned from my previous mistakes and the cake came out beautifully. I made a quick mascarpone frosting (no recipe!) and spread it over the cooled cake just like I did before. And that first bite? Utterly perfect.”

“The finished cake smelled delicious, like vanilla and sugar and flour, and I just put my face next to it and inhaled while it cooled. I patiently waited until I could try the first slice. Just like before, I carefully broke off that first perfect bite. I can’t kid anyone. It wasn’t a very good cookbook, it wasn’t a very good recipe, and frankly, the cake was disgusting. The flavor was strange, the texture was off, and I couldn’t eat more than that one bite.”