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Page Two of Just Icing on the Cake

We watched her squeeze out a thick bead of icing around the top edge of the bottom layer and fill the center with fruit filling. The icing keeps the filling from oozing out between the layers. This was something of a light bulb moment for me. I began to fantasize delighting friends with surprise fillings tucked inside in breathtaking creations.

Class was dismissed early for a special discount shopping trip in the store so we could purchase all the helpful items to enable us to be successful bakers; everything that wasn’t packaged in the Beginner’s Kit. Well, there was no question about the practicality of using a single 3-inch deep cake pan rather than two 1-1/2-inch pans. Obviously there’s less waste cutting off only one raised top instead of two. The special adjustable cutter with the wire would guarantee level tortes. I needed one of those. (Note to future self; it won’t work on an uneven, tile surface with grout.)

I added the special (expensive) shortening with trans-fat, piping gel, meringue powder, colorings, a frosting spatula, and a decorating turntable to the growing pile of items I convinced myself were necessary. Then I impulsively added a cleverly designed cake-saver and a cupcake-saver. Did you know there are insulated bands to wrap around the outside of the cake pan to slow the cooking of the outer edge of the cake while the center bakes? The even temperature while in the oven reduces the size of the raised center on top that eventually gets sliced off. Naturally, the nifty 3-inch deep pan requires two wraps to accommodate the depth.

When I got home and unloaded the trunk of the car, I informed my husband that when he tasted the first slice of my cake, he should remember to say, "Wow, Honey, this cake tastes like a million bucks." He wouldn’t be far off the truth!

I decided to select a French Vanilla cake mix (approved brand, of course) over the 4-5 varieties of chocolate my heart longed to taste. The light-colored crumbs would be easier to camouflage with white butter-cream frosting (without the butter).

I had the project all mapped out in my head. I would bake the required cake and six cupcakes and apply icing the next morning so I could relax the rest of the afternoon before class. I’d watched the instructor pull it off in much less time, especially when you account for the lecture and shopping spree portions of the evening.

Despite using the exact brand of mix, cake pan, insulated wraps and wax paper on the bottom of the lightly greased pan, my cake was reluctant to separate from the pan. When it finally plopped out, it left random French Vanilla chunks firmly attached to the aluminum sides. "No problem," I said in my mental pep talk, "I’ll just glue the larger pieces in place with frosting and fill in the smaller holes. So what if it’s a bit thicker in some areas?"

I allowed the cake to cool and readied myself for the process of turning my cake into two even layers. It seemed that the cake didn’t understand its role. The pieces falling off the sides of the cake as I attempted to side the wire through reminded me of icebergs calving off glaciers.

Next I gently slid my fingers between the layers to slip a circle of cardboard between them for support. The top layer (or was it the bottom?) flexed and cracked. That’s when I began to think of butter-cream frosting in terms of building spackle and chalking.

Lori had recommended wrapping the cake in plastic wrap and freezing it to make it easier to handle while stacking and icing. Maybe I was supposed to do that before cutting, but it was too late now. I ripped off a section of plastic wrap long enough to encase a side of beef; seconds later it was a hopeless tangle of twisted rope.

This might be the time to interject that I was approximately 14 hours into a migraine headache by the time I was coiling plastic ropes around two crumbling layers. I ended up with something that looked vaguely like an Egyptian mummy, only more gruesome.

The following morning my time management scheme began to crumble, just like my cake, as soon as I realized my large electric mixer was buried in a garage storage cabinet blocked by layers of window screens. Mixing several small batches of frosting with a handheld mixer seemed the easier route than fighting my way through the temporary obstacle generated by the house painter.

Page Three>>

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