How I Became The Birthday Cake Specialist
Cakes. They have been a part of my life from the beginning. I remember many a car ride down the mountain we lived on as my mom sweated buttercream stressing over multiple layers of beautifully crafted wedding cakes pieces traveling to some destination for later assembly. My mother was an artist with frosting, and I still have her write on any cake that I produce if she is around. Her perfect script looks fantastic sprawled across a bed of frosting.
Here's her writing on my daughter's birthday cake this weekend:
My journey with cake construction began at a young age, but I really didn't get into refining my style until after I had kids. Dry cake was my inspiration, as I think one of the grossest things on the planet is dry, sawdust textured cake. Overly sweet frosting is a close second. Time availability is another factor that I have to consider, so I have got my cake making method down to a science. I can take a boxed cake mix and turn it into something apparently amazing. What I don't do is follow the instructions, I have made my own. Things like replacing some of the water with buttermilk, adding an extra egg, beating it for longer than the instructions suggest. It's gotten to the point where I can eyeball the batter and know if I need more liquid in the mix.
However, I made a tactical error. I took a cake one year as a gift to one of my co-workers. It was my German Chocolate Cake, and it is pretty good. I toast the coconut and pecans for the frosting that I do make from scratch. This particular cake is a delicious blend of moist cake, textured filling, and a light, fluffy, slightly-sweet chocolate frosting. Somehow this cake was so good that I have been selected as the official birthday cake provider for each employee's special days. As there are five of us, that's not really a big deal, for I love the people that I work with, but two of my co-workers birthdays happen the same week as my daughter's birthday. So guess who got to make and decorate five cakes in 3 days!
I have a serious admiration for people that construct pastry and cake majesty for a living. They are the true artisans of the confection world. My goal is to make people smile with things that taste good, and today I did just that. My co-workers sat around me in silence, uttering occasional moans and grunts of contentment. Sure, I usually have a million things to do, but there is something incredibly fulfilling about being able to give a gift of something that you are rather decent at as an offering of goodwill and friendship to those you spend time in the trenches with.
Our color printer was acting rather fussy today, and we thought maybe the magical cake could turn its bad attitude around. We emailed this picture to our IT guy. I'm sure he appreciated our efforts.
And as always, all of the images in this post were taken by the author on her frosting smeared iPhone.