The Day I Realised the Terrifying Truth.

Events occured on Friday, August 27 2010.

After learning of the wedding and the cake it is time to start practicing.  I had decided by this stage to make a buttercream cake: a. because I like the taste of buttercream; b. I didn't have any ingredients for fondant; and c. I never was any good with playdough (also I can draw well and write fairly legibly). 

After completely declining to look at a recipe (or Youtube, or Google, or ask anyone...) I flew into my first decorating foray with great enthusiasm.

This is the actual email that I sent my poor sister, who - to her credit - didn't just say "nevermind, I didn't really want a cake anyway..."

Warning: I actually feel a strange, almost physically painful, embarrassed sickness posting this.  However, since this is called 'The Evolution of Cake' and not 'Hey, Look At My Cool Cake', in the interest of honesty here it is...

Note: some comentary and editing in red, in case I offend anyone.

Subject: Cakety cake cake

So... I made a batch of buttercream and found my decorating stuff - oh only one piping bag. Fine, it's just a practice, I'll just use one  
colour (sorry about the gross puce colour - with hindsight that wasn't a good choice). 

Right! We've got our cake and our piping bag, let's make some roses...(I hear they are popular at weddings...) WHAT!? I have a set of 10 fudging piping tips and not one of them is 
for flowers of any kind!? Not a problem; this basketweave (WTF!) tip will do...

Anyway... first attempt at anything even close to that, and so far I'd
say that all signs point to promising.  (I was trying to inject myself with confidence, and being only a little sardonic...)

Photos to follow

xox

Sent from my iPhone

Please pay extra special attention to the nice edges, and the way that I still had a problem with my icing almost, but not entirely, covering my cake. 

Next cake opportunity: My niece's someteenth Birthday (14th I think). 

The Day My Sister Set a Wedding Date.

My sister, like me, put the cart before the horse.  Met a boy, fell in love, moved in together, got engaged, and then had babies.  Actually getting married was put on the back burner; two kids, a house and careers saw to that.  

Now, imagine my excitement when she called me and said that they had actually set a date!  I love weddings, I'm a terminal wedding-cryer - the thought of two people publicly pledging their love (and saying all the soppy love and commitment stuff) reduces me to an emotional wreck.  The fact that I would be that wreck at my sister's wedding was almost too much excitement to contain.  I started imagining it with gusto (and pre-crying, I kid you not).

Being a good sister, and inappropriately involved in others' lives, I asked if there was anything I could do for her.  "Well", she said "could you make the cake?".  Could I make the cake? Of course I could make the cake!  Wholeheartedly I agreed to make a wedding cake, for a wedding, that people would be able to look at and taste and comment on.

I started imagining how I would make a cake that would send all the other cakes into a spiral of jealousy.  The best, most beautiful, cake in the whole entire world.  A cake fitting of my beautiful sister on her most magical day!

Then I remembered that the only cakes I have made were for my children's Birthday parties...and they looked like this:

This is a carousel.  Yes, that horse's legs are broken (you can see them down in front of the "cake" there).  Yes, this took me a long time to make - my time spent : results ratio was well disappointing.  We didn't actually end up eating this cake, we had the chocolate caramel cheesecake I made instead.  It was awesome.  (And yes, that is a foil-wrapped chopping board...) 

This is perhaps the best of my cake-making abilities.  A pink square that is almost, but not entirely, covered in icing.  It tasted fantastic - as chocolate cakes do - but looks like...well...a pink square that is almost, but not entirely, covered in icing...

This cake is a pinata (I don't know how to do the squiggly thingy above the 'n', let's pretend I have though).  Under the chocolate shell - that took about 5 hours and 15 re-melts - is a two-tier pink and purple monstrosity with chocolate coins in the top.  And yes, that is a foil-wrapped plate... (The plate was a giant melamine one that I had melted in the dishwasher once so it rocked slightly.)

So, at this stage I have promised my sister a wedding cake.  A wedding cake.  For an actual wedding! 

Luckily my Sister set the date well before her wedding, I can't exactly remember how long before - perhaps a year or a year and a half - so I had this unflappable confidence that I would surely become the world's best cake maker in this time.

Let's see how that goes...