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.