Five days before the wedding (see last week's post), I started baking jellyroll-pan sized cakes in my son (the groom)'s house in Seattle. When the first two cakes turned out wedge-shaped, I tried to level the oven with shims till I realized it was not the oven but the oven rack that was aslant. That was more easily fixed. The next day I made ten level cakes, five mocha and five orange, to stash in the freezer. On the next day I made two gallons of strawberry purée and another orange cake to replace the one with a broken top.
At 7:30 on the morning of the wedding, I was in the kitchen at the retreat center on Vashon Island where the wedding would take place, anxious to begin. My dismay at having brought the wrong parts for the electric beater turned to relief when I found that I could easily and quickly whip the double-heavy cream to stiff peaks with a whisk. My friends Louann and Tracy soon joined me to make an efficient cake-assembly team. Tracy brushed each rectangular cake with Grand Marnier. Louann cut it into thirds and helped me lift one section at a time, with two spatulas, onto the cardboard circle, where I covered each layer with strawberry purée and frosting. And so we worked, stacking the cakes by thirds and repeating the purée-and-frosting routine until pretty soon a three-layered mocha cake lay next to a three-layered orange cake next to a mocha cake and so on in a checkerboard pattern, each cake horizontally striped with bright red strawberry purée and pink frosting and mitered at the inner corners till ten cakes had made a circle three feet across.
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| Assembling the cake (l-r): me, Becky, Tracy |
When Louann and Tracy left, Becky took over, cutting wedges from the extra, broken orange cake to fill in the outer gaps of the circle. Then we frosted and frosted, ensconcing the ring of cake in delicate pink, strawberry-cloud, cream frosting.
In the meantime, people were bringing in potluck dishes, and the kitchen was filling with odors. I became alarmed. Would the whipped cream absorb the tastes of olives, garlic, and tomato sauce? Would it would spoil in the warm kitchen? My sister Sharon suggested we set the cake outside on top of two open ice chests, but someone said there was a dog running around, and someone else mentioned the curious fingers of children. We tried putting the cake in a van, but the big plywood circle it sat on wouldn't fit through the van door. So for the next five hours the cake sat safe and cool on top of a van in the shade.
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| Wedding guests helping move the cake to the top of a van |
Usually the wedding cake is brought out complete in its breathtaking glory, but when this one was brought to the reception area after the wedding, it looked like a pink, slippery-skinned salamander. Decorating with fresh flowers meant last-minute magic and nothing off-stage. A crowd gathered to witness with amusement and astonishment as Louann and I worked the transformation. We put three of Ela and Leah's beautiful wedding invitations on a pedestal in the center of the cake ring. Around this centerpiece Louann created a circular bouquet of white lilacs and red roses while I wreathed the bottom edges of the cake, inner and outer, with forest greenery and decorated the top with chocolate-covered strawberries and long tassels of red amaranth blossoms. Working fast, hardly talking, we clothed the naked pink cake in floral glory.
I barely had time to eat my own dinner before people were asking for cake. The bride and groom appeared, and I handed them a knife and a plate, but the bride said, "No. We should just bite into it!" The groom took a breath and said, "You first."
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| First bites |
Holding back her long black har, the bride leaned over the cake with a wide-open mouth and dove right in! The groom immediately did the same, and then they stood in front of us all, grinning, chewing, with pink whipped-cream frosting smeared over their faces. Two huge holes gaped side by side in the beautiful circle of cake.
But the beauty of the cake had shifted from the visual to the gustatory. "The cake is delicious," people said. "The orange is out of this world." In no time, all that was left was yellow and black crumbs, smears of pink frosting, and half of one mocha cake on a circle of cardboard, rubble around bouquets of white lilacs and red roses circling three white invitations with the names of the wedded couple encircled in gold.
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| Serving the cake, with my sister Sharon (left) |
Next week: "Fashion Consultants' Luncheon"
Recipes from this post
Orange sheet cake
Mocha sheet cake
Strawberry cloud cream frosting
MOCHA OR ORANGE SHEET CAKE
serves 12
Ingredients: Mocha
1/2 cup (I stick) unsalted butter1 cup strong brewed coffee
(or 1 tablespoon instant coffee, dissolved in 1 cup hot water)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Ingredients: Orange
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup fresh orange juuice
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup full-fat milk
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon grated orange rind
Preparation
Preheat oven to 400º. Lightly grease one 15 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 1-inch jellyroll pan. For the mocha cake, brew the coffee. For the orange cake juice the oranges and grate the rind.
To make
Stir 1/2 cup butter, coffee or orange juice, and vegetable oil in a heavy small saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa, if using. Stir until smooth, then remove from heat. Stir flour, sugar, baking soda or powder, and salt in large bowl until blended. Whisk the warm mixture into the dry ingredients. Whisk buttermilk (or milk) eggs and vanilla in medium bowl until blended. Add to flour mixture and blend well. Add orange rind if using. Spread batter in prepared pan. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer to rack to cool.
To finish
Cut cake into thirds. Using strawberry cloud cream frosting (recipe below) or another cream cheese frosting, spread frosting over one layer, cover with another cake layer, and spread with more frosting. Set the final third of the cake over the top, and cover everything in clouds of pink frosting. Use left-over frosting on cupcakes or waffles.
STRAWBERRY CLOUD CREAM FROSTING
Amended from The Cake Bible, Rose Levy Beranbaum
yield: 5 cups
Ingredients
2 1/2 teaspoons powdered gelatin
1 cup sweetened strawberry purée
2 cups heavy cream
7 tablespoons sugar
To make
Using a heatproof measuring cup, soften gelatin in 1/4 cup strawberry purée. Let sit for 5 minutes. Set cup in a pan of simmering water and stir till gelatin dissolves. Stir gelatin mixture into remaining purée. In a chilled bowl, beat the cream till it mounds softly when dropped from a spoon. Add the purée mixture and beat till stiff peaks form. Add more sugar if your taste buds request it.
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