20 - That's a Hat, Alright (February 27th, 2011)

I’ve got to get better at time management. In all aspects of my life. For one, this cake idea was conceived a week before construction, and I didn’t actually start baking until like 20 hours before it was eaten. This sounds like a decent amount of time, but not when you account for the fact that I needed a couple hours to bake, a few more hours to freeze, another couple hours to decorate – oh and at least 6 hours to sleep and 8 hours to be at my day job and another couple hours to commute back to Connecticut, where the cake eating would be taking place basically upon arrival. For two – it’s noon, I’ve got to catch a 1:07 train to New Haven, I’m wearing pajamas, I have packed nothing, and I’ve deluded myself into thinking that I can bang out a blog post before leaving. For three – this post is 3 weeks late.

Let’s try and get past the fact that I have the attention span of a ball of yarn and comparable planning skills, and get straight to the cake. It was my dad’s birthday on February 7th, and I went down to Connecticut around then to eat a good meal and allow Joe Jr to steer the conversation and tell his jokes with slightly less resistance than usual. The night before, I scrambled to pull this thing off – it’s a fez, by the way. A fez. A hat. A hat that my dad has been known to wear along with a smoking jacket when company comes over. The whole thing happened so fast. All of a sudden it was 10pm and this cake wasn’t even frozen yet. Luckily I had some frozen ganache from a previous cake, so I warmed it up, cut a fez shape the best way I knew how, and the whole thing came together as a charming little lumpy thing.

The next morning, I found myself on a 2 train headed towards work with a fez cake in my lap, half asleep, half reading this kindle contraption I inherited from my mother after she graduated to the iPad – when I was approached by a gentleman named Danny who asked if I happened to have a cake blog named So Many Cakes. My instincts are telling me that the proper way to handle this situation is to celebrate a brief moment of silent victory and let it pass, play it cool. But no. I’m telling you about it. I’m telling you about it because I was recognized in public, and that’s ridiculous. I’m a goddamned celebrity.

After work I headed back to my hometown to be a fifth wheel to my parents and my brother/his girlfriend. We had a lovely meal, and then we ate this cake. Here’s some proof of that.