Next spring, Steve and I have decided to renew our vows.  We will have been together for 15 years and to celebrate, we’ve decided to host the wedding we never had.  It will be a very small and intimate affair, but very special and dear to us.

As I share a bit of the wedding planning process here with you, you will be laughing at me. Not with me, at me, and a lot.  It’s ok, I understand.  I see the ridiculousness.

So, teeny-tiny, not real wedding, you make a little dessert table. Maybe a bunt cake or some cupcakes or something, right? It’s the reasonable thing to do. Me? I want to make this:

image by: The Studio B Photography

Never mind that it’s like 15 times more cake than we need and I probably need some kind of culinary degree to construct it. My “logic” is this…I don’t need to become a cake decorating expert, I just need to master the skills particular to this cake. And I have 10 months to do it.

My darling sister foolishly very kindly offered to help with the cake baking and last weekend she was up for a visit and a practice run.  There were issues.  Lots of issues.  Dividing the batter evenly was clearly one of those issues.

Three layers in; note the size discrepancy. We made one small layer to practice on.  In between every other layer (ok, what’s the word for the layers that make up the layers of a cake?  There has got to be a different word for it because this is just getting confusing) was either raspberry jam or chocolate glaze. Then we covered the whole thing with two layers (there it is again) of chocolate glaze.  There was some orange flavoring in there too, which I think was a nice touch.

First layer of chocolate…

and the second layer after it had chilled…

Not too bad for a first try right? It’s all level, you can’t tell that the layers are uneven underneath, it’s fairly smooth considering we didn’t have the right tools or anything.  Seems like a fairly good base for the fondant.

Oh, the fondant. Ever make fondant before? Word of advice? Don’t. So not only am I trying to make fondant, which is notorious for being a big ole’ pain in the behind, but I’m trying to switch out ingredients to make it safe for us. We find this recipe that looks ok as is. Only it’s missing many of the ingredients that are in *all* of the other recipes. Worth a try, right?

Wrong.

Of course.

duh!

We make it anyway and number one: unbleached sugar does not a pretty fondant make. Unless you really dig salt dough and like the idea of covering a cake in it. Two: it is not the right consistency at. all.  Lots and lots of doctoring and like 10 lbs of sugar later, we have this HUGE amount of “fondant” that resembles leftover gravy that’s been stored in the refrigerator. No problem. We can make this work (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha). So we watch a few videos on decorating. (sure that looks easy. I’m sure ours will roll out just like that) (it didn’t) (at some point we ended up picking up small pieces of it and pressing them onto the cake)

It’s possible that Steve may have gotten his head bitten off,  just a little bit, while trying to offer up a compliment during a particularly strained decorating moment.  Sarcasm practically oozes out of the man’s pores, how was I supposed to know he was being sincere for once!?

This is the point where we gave up in frustration….

Yup.

See? You’re laughing already, aren’t you?

After we told everyone to “just eat the darn thing!”, that they had been begging to eat non-stop for the entire 48 hours we were working on it, we hugged each other and then practically collapsed on the floor while laughing hysterically.

I was prepared to scrap the whole thing, but my sister is now on a mission. I said I was considering serving like strawberries and cream. She said, “Oh, strawberry shortcake might be nice”, I said, “no, like strawberries…on a plate, end of story.” She’s researching and sending me ideas. The report from her roommates was that the chocolate part was awesome, but they didn’t understand the fondant, nor recognize it as such.

The fondant did *taste* good, at least if you didn’t look at it too much while you were eating it. It tasted way better than any fondant I’ve ever had. Which is probably where we went wrong. I still maintain that we totally could have made those decorations, if we….you know… had a substance that was actually capable of being shaped that way.