Page Three of Just Icing on the Cake
All I was required to do was coat the cake in a smooth blanket of icing. The special spatula was not the magic wand I had observed in Lori’s hands. I patched, spun the cake around on the turntable until I was dizzy and still had a cake whose silhouette resembled my own. Lumps and bulges refused to submit to all tactics to transform them into smooth, sleek lines.
The voice in my head (which strangely enough, sounded a lot like my husband’s) whispered, "You’re obsessing." The one thing I promised myself I wouldn’t allow to take over is that persistent longing for perfectionism. This was supposed to be fun!
The printed instructions Lori had provided contained the statement, "If you have any questions, please call." Only one question came to mind: remind me … why is it exactly that I’m doing this? Did I mention that my dear husband, Mike, prefers to eat pie, rather than cake? He also scrapes the frosting off his dessert before eating it.
I phoned my best friend once the cloud of powdered sugar settled and I had conceded I needed to quit and accept a measure of defeat.
"If I never properly thanked you for all the beautifully decorated birthday cakes you made for my son 30-something years ago, I’m humbly thanking you now!"
All I heard on the line for the next half-minute or so was unsympathetic laughter.
It briefly crossed my mind that while driving to class that night I could slam on the brakes as I turned into the parking lot, causing my lumpy cake to launch itself against the side of the cake-saver. Then in a pastry chef’s version of, 'The dog ate my homework,' I’d explain how a dog had darted across the road right in front of my car. I’d reveal a cake with accordion folds and blink back a solitary tear. Since high drama didn’t really seem like the right approach and I’m still waiting for my first Academy Award nomination, I ceased rehearsing the scene in my head.
Lori’s mission that night was to teach us how to use several different frosting tips with triangles of parchment paper rolled into cones to hold the frosting. What can I say? Some of us caught on much quicker than others.
We switched tips, practiced making consistent swirls, stars and shells at a feverish pace. Our practice boards received layers of icing only to be scraped back into a bowl and applied again, eventually graduating to decorating our cakes. Somehow I ended up with green food coloring past both elbows, but not a molecule contacted my apron. The strangest part was that I wasn’t even working with that color.
"You okay over there?" asked my table partner, Cathy.
"Huh?" I blinked as I pulled myself back into focus. I realized I hadn’t moved in several minutes. My pastry bag was poised at the proper 45-degree angle for making a shell border, but the tip and my cake were nowhere near each other. The fingers of my right hand were cramped around the parchment bag that I had proudly shaped into a perfect cone at the beginning of class. It was now twisted and gnarled. Pink frosting had oozed between my fingers and was now drying into a crusty mess.
When I say ‘pink,’ I am implying a shade somewhere between Pepto-Bismol and neon pink. I may as well confess, while I’m at it, that I was aiming for a light, delicate blush of color.
Even with all that extra white frosting I made, I couldn’t tone it down. So I adopted the ‘I meant to do that’ attitude. We had another 30 minutes to go before being dismissed. I looked over at Cathy and sighed, "I’m all frosted out. I don’t have another shell or star left in me."
Lori’s announced that the assignment for the third and final week would be to bring another frosted cake so we could learn how to make a daisy, leaf, and the elaborate looking rose. She then demonstrated how to make roses and told us to practice at home. It would take a stopwatch to time how quickly that woman could turn out a perfect rose. We asked her to repeat the steps over and again, since she didn’t seem able to work slower than a race horse.
Even as overloaded with techniques as I felt, a glowing ember of hope smoldered within me. If I couldn’t make a perfect-looking smooth surface on my cake, at least I could dazzle everyone with perfect flowers to hide the imperfections. I can do that!
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©2009 Roberta McReynolds for SeniorWomen.com
