Cake Mastery

My black Volkswagen lost all traction as I hydroplaned around an S corner on a back road, the mud taking me wherever it wanted. I made a mental note to apologize to the Hunter for ever nagging him about the way he drives my car, as at that very moment I was rallying my poor car down the telegraph road, desperately trying to keep up to my friend’s roaring Nissan because without her I was totally lost on the back roads. The woman drove as energetically as her personality screamed; I can recognize her vibrant laugh down the hallway whenever she walked into the office.

My adrenaline had yet to come down when I entered her house. I was still asking myself how I was going to get my car back up the mud pit I drove down when a blond haired flash of pink surged past the entrance hall. Overshooting her destination, Necia circled back towards me. “Hi Kirstin!” The tiny ball of fiery sunshine greeted me. After showing off her pink sequin dress with an energetic spin I walked up the stairs and entered her mother’s kitchen. Centered on the island were two nine inch cake circles. My friend, Elaine, owner of Sugarbug Creations, promised to show me how to make a bitchin’ cake – just in time for the Hunter’s birthday.

We were combining an astonishing amount of butter, sugar and heavy cream together to make the icing, which would soon become snow, for this masterpiece of a B-Day Cake. Elaine explained that while on maternity leave she took a cake decorating course with some girlfriends. She had hoped to find a skill that would allow her to forget her current job at the Sawmill and work from home while raising her daughter, Necia. I added a splash vanilla to the kitchen-aid (as if I knew what the hell I was doing)  and a splash more wine to her glass when she admitted that things hadn’t turned out as wished, as she returned to work even earlier than anticipated when her husband lost his job to the local mine shutting down. Elaine slowly climbed the latter at work and her cake business took off. She’s previously made me a cake replica of my yellow sunfire as well as my most favorite cake: a Hot Mess Wine cake (an original, I’m sure).

Elaine sympathetically took the spatula from my hand. I had no hope of covering the two tiered almond cake with thick white icing without getting pink everywhere. The goal was to make sure there were no traces of the center: syrupy raspberry goodness and I was struggling hard on that front. It turned out I was more suited for tree creation. Her husband, Jeremy and her are now business partners in the cake biz, as he specializes in the details, like making chocolate blades for a chainsaw cake and giving me advise on my fondant tree pruning. They’ve been married a little under a year, and have an epic love story of being roommates who fell into a friendship tangled with jagermeister turned into a river-front house and three kids.

Elaine, who is from the Fort Fraser area, once crinkle eye laughed with me as she told me how she knew the Hunter over the years and escapades of crazy girlfriends and was quite happy that he finally found me (crazy or not, here I am). Him and I drank twisted tea’s sitting next to each other as we watched Elaine’s and Jeremy’s wedding ceremony. Every woman in the audience, myself included, teared up as Jeremy cried during his vows and Elaine grinned and laughed and that same, wonderful laugh.

I make indents in blue fondant and show the finished product to Elaine who approves of the toque, and I take pride in her acceptance. Cake decorating, never mind the baking, is so much harder than I had ever anticipated. And that’s sort of the thing about Elaine, during appetizers and passion parties she’ll provide you with uncensored details of her life struggles and accept all of your flaws in return. I keep joking that with all of Jeremy’s beautiful carpentry work, he should build her an industrial kitchen. If I’m being honest, I’m quite thankful her cake biz didn’t take off right at the start because I would have never have gotten to know her. And Elaine really is that strong women you know you’re so lucky to have in your life.

Truly,

One humbled cake master.

Eat the cake. It's somebodies birthday somewhere.