BY PHOODIE
I love cake. Like, seriously LOVE it. In fact, my love for cake could possibly be described as “borderline obsessive.”
I eat, talk, and write about it with a deep and genuine passion that many reserve for either a partner or a child. Or a pair of Christian Louboutins.
So it would make sense that when it came to planning my wedding, arranging the cake was actually one of the most important items on my ‘to do’ list. The dress, venue, bonbonieres, and flowers all had to be sorted out, and I understood that. But the cake? It had to be Dreamt Up. Designed. Researched. Crafted.
Hours upon hours were spent Googling and flipping through copies of Cosmopolitan Bride, Real Weddings, and every other bridal magazine in existence and eventually I created an extremely detailed collage of all of the types of cakes I loved.
The pictures spoke of about fifty different flavours and icings. Of decorated cakes, faux cakes, textured and jeweled cakes. No stone was left unturned. No detail was left unexplored.
Then came the time to choose a baker to make this gastronomic wedding masterpiece. I’m lucky that I have an Aunt that knows who to call in pretty much any “situation” relating to food or fashion. So when she told me she knew the perfect man for the job, I trusted her straight away.
My Aunt is always ten steps ahead of the pack when it comes to this kind of stuff and this guy was, according to her, “going to be the next big thing in the patisserie world.”
Awesome. So I called him to arrange to meet up.
We spoke briefly and decided to meet at his patisserie on a Monday afternoon four weeks before the wedding. Finally the day came and so Mum, my Aunt and I hopped in to the car and drove to his store.
Upon arrival we informed the girl serving that we were there to meet, (let’s call him) X and immediately she looked confused. “He doesn’t work on Mondays,” she said. “Um, but we had an appointment.
I made it with him on the phone.” Her confused look carried on. “Could you maybe call him or something?” I asked. I was starting to feel anxious. “Um, alriiiiiiight, but he…. Oh, you can just speak to him.” And with that she punched his numbers in to a hands-free and passed it over the counter to me.
He answered the phone in a very grumpy manner, clearly pissed off that someone had DARED disturb him on what turned out to be his day off. When questioned as to his whereabouts at the time of our appointment he basically yelled, “A bloke’s gotta have a day off you know!!” Um, yeah I do know dude but WE HAD AN APPOINTMENT. So that was that. He hung up on me and I’ve never purchased a cake of his since. (I’ve eaten them, but have never actually paid for them with money belonging to me, out of principle!)
Where to from here? Three weeks to go and still no cake. My Aunt was calling everyone she knew to try and find someone who could help us out and eventually she hit the jackpot. Another, up and coming patissier, who happened to be a friend of a friend of hers, was able to do it! Or so he thought.
Again, Mum, my Aunt and I went to meet him and chat about all of the details. He was a really lovely guy. He had a tonne of brilliant ideas and he seemed excited to be involved. After an hour and a half of talking Fondant and Fruit Cake he asked us for the date of the wedding. His face fell. He was going to be overseas. Argh!!
Two weeks to go and it seemed like the only solution would be the local French patisserie. Surprisingly I’d never actually been inside, something about it made me not want to, but at this stage I was desperate and desperate times call for desperate measures. I spent about 10 minutes talking to the owner, I described what I wanted, I told them the date that I would need it and all seemed fine. We agreed to the basics and I paid a deposit.
They told me they would need the full amount in a week’s time, which would be the week before the big day. No problem.
So a week before my wedding, in between attending the funeral of my beautiful grandmother and her wake, I popped by the patisserie to pay the difference.
But I couldn’t pay the difference because there was a sign on the door saying that the owners had gone back to France, as they had to visit an ill family member.
What the actual hell!? I mean, I felt sad that someone they loved was ill and that they had to flee overseas to be bedside, but why meeeeeee? (Cue: Bridezilla.)
Why was I having such bad luck with this cake? (It turned out that every single year, at the same time of year, the couple that own this shop “have to fly back to France to be with a sick family member” and people in the know informed me that there is no sick family member but rather a glorious European Summer vacation that they just “have” to take. Bizarre!)
Anyway, we are now 6 days away from my nuptials and there is no cake in sight. The only option seemed to be to call the venue and howl down the phone to them. It turned out that no howling was necessary. They said yes straight away when asked if it was going to be possible, and to make matters even more wonderful, the cake was a flipping knock-out.
It was made up of two very high layers, and each layer was comprised of about 30 thinner layers of different textures of chocolate cake. It was completely covered in the fluffiest and most delicious buttercream icing ever, and the outside was plastered with large white chocolate shards. Everyone who ate it wept with glee.
Below I have uploaded a couple of pictures to a gallery, one of my cake and a few of a novelty engagement cake that I made for my brother and his fiancé. I’d love to hear your wedding cake stories and see your pictures too, so email the snaps through to [email protected] and we will add them alongside my ones below.
** It turned out to be true. Shortly after my 2008 Wedding, he hit the big time and is now extremely well-known the country over.
Phoodie is a cookbook, restaurant, and supermarket obsessed blogger and Mum of 2. Phoodie blogs here, is on Facebook here and tweets here.
Did you have a cool wedding cake? Was it traditional or a “one off”? What’s the best wedding cake you’ve ever seen? Feel free to upload a photo and show us yours.