something tiered, something blue

The wedding cake project is one of the culminating events of the pastry arts curriculum. It begins as a cooperative effort between Levels 2 and 3, as the Level 2 students act as the "clients" for the project. They assemble a full portfolio to guide the Level 3 students making the cakes, choosing a bride and groom, a location and theme for the wedding, colors, flowers and even a first song and a dinner menu for the reception.

My class had previously been on this creative end of the project, nominating Prince Harry and the heiress to the F.A.O Schwarz fortune (who happens to be Glenn Close's daughter) for a winter wonderland wedding at a castle in Scotland. I helped design and word the royal invitation, and wrote a backstory for the couple in the manner of a "Vows" column in the New York Times, complete with cheesy (but perfect) closing quote. Being on the receiving end of this torrent of information, then trying to decide how to turn a pile of facts, locations, and colors into a cake that embodies the essence of a couple, I found much harder.

Our happy couple was a pair of Americans heading to a destination wedding in Barcelona. She was a teacher, he was an attorney. They met in Spanish class at Harvard, and chose blue as the color for their casual ceremony. Flowers were bluebells and frangipani, the china had hints of blue, and the bridesmaids wore another shade of blue altogether.

Never having been married or looked at wedding cakes much myself, I wasn't sure where to start. The only wedding cake I was acquainted with was my parents', which in the simple spirit of their wedding was a single layer of cake covered with chocolate frosting. My mother has been heard to compare it to a muddy football field, but apparently it tasted delicious. However, since our cake for class was required to be three tiers tall, I would have to search for inspiration elsewhere.

I found it in the delicate, elaborate scrolls on the invitation. My vision was of a simple, graphic design in white sugarpaste on a background of blue rolled fondant, the bright colors echoing the Spanish location and casual, joyful nature of the ceremony. The topper would be a simple monogram in pastillage (another type of sugar paste) echoing the design and surrounded by the beautiful frangipani. The cake itself, a recipe dictated by our chef-instructor, was an orange pound cake filled with a Grand Marnier ganache and the thinnest layer of orange marmalade.

We were given three days to complete the cake start-to-finish, so a detailed and tightly planned itinerary was a must. Day 1 was a mad rush of cake mixing and baking, cutting layers, trimming edges, making buttercream, mixing the ganache (with plenty of Grand Marnier, of course), and filling the cakes. I also made my fondant for covering the cake and the pastillage sugar dough for the monogram.

Day 2 saw me crumb-coating the cakes, making the delicate sugarpaste frangipani, and attempting to cut out my design for the front of the cake. My usually trusty X-acto knife (an important weapon in the pastry chef's arsenal) proved stubbornly incapable of cutting the clean edges through rolled sugarpaste that my design demanded. When my paring knife failed almost as badly, I called on our chef for advice. His inspiration to make the design elements 3-dimensional produced a cleaner, bolder look than the cut-outs and eliminated the rough edges that had been fretting me. So I spent the last part of class frantically rolling out sugarpaste pieces and trying to give them the gentle curves and contours of the invitation's scrolls.

Day 3 was all about assembly and the final touches. When each layer, and a cardboard base, had been carefully covered in its blue fondant wrapping, wooden dowels cut exactly to measure were inserted through the center of each tier. These dowels, though barely 1/4" thick, are capable of supporting significant weight when properly distributed. I found myself holding my breath as I stacked the tiers on top of one another and gently secured the monogram and flowers to the top-most tier. It held, and I reached quickly for my camera.

The Level 2 students, who had set all of our cakes in motion, got to come up and vote for their favorite. As they walked around the room and examined each cake in turn, I was struck by the variety of designs and colors that my class had produced as each student filtered the requirements given them through the lens of personal taste and experience - we ran the gamut from pristine white cakes covered in tiny delicate flowers to bold, colorful cakes inspired by Gaudi's surreal Barcelona architecture.

My cake didn't win. It might not have gotten even one vote. But the experience of transforming a two-dimensional drawing into a (delicious!) three-dimensional cake was much more fun than I expected. I'd like to think that Katie and Dennis (our mythical couple) would have enjoyed the cake I made for them - I know the former co-workers that I brought it to certainly did!