FIFTY TWO. (Published April 24th, 2012)

Welp. Here it is. Here is the culmination of 547 days worth of constant caking. When I say constant, I mean throughout the course of an entire year and a half of my life, at some point of each and every day, I was forced to think about caking and baking and blogging. I frequented condescendland (cake supply store near my office) so often, and spent so much money, that one might assume that I was friends with the owners. And when I say “one might assume that I was,” I mean “I dreamt about but ultimately failed at becoming.” Granted, I did sit down in an aisle once and bend one of their cookie cutters to a shape I liked better. But they were being dicks.

Was it worth it? The time, the effort, the money spent? So much has happened since I started this thing. I turned 23, then I turned 24. I moved into New York City, a relationship ended, I had my appendix out, I moved to Brooklyn, I got evicted, I met Radiohead Bassist Colin Greenwood, I went to Ikea three times, my brother had a daughter, I started improv classes at UCB, I cooked an old modem in the oven by accident. These items are not in sequential order.

The point is – I’d have to say that yes, this ridiculous project was worth it. Each cake is symbolic of a very specific memory, which is neat. Someday long into the future, when my grandkids ask me what life was like in my twenties, back in what was formerly “New York City,” I’ll send them a PDF of the So Many Cakes archives via eyeball transfer, ditch ‘em, and pop over to the moon to have moon tea with my moon friends. In an ideal future, I will never need to verbally communicate with my grandkids. Also moon colonization.

But let’s get back to talking about this cake. It’s a wedding cake. I’ve mentioned it in previous posts, and here it is. This was a cake made for a wedding, and it was treated as such. As a wedding cake. For a wedding. People took pictures of this cake and put them in albums. People ate this cake as toasts were given. I still can’t wrap my brain around this. The other thing I can’t wrap my brain around is the fact that the final result was not only passable – it’s like the best thing I’ve ever seen.

But what you don’t know is that this cake – this whole cake blog, in fact – has been a byproduct of a larger plan. A plan I’ve had since before So Many Cakes was even a twinkle in my eye. A plan driven by a goal I’ve had since I was a tiny child: to one day successfully crash a wedding.

This particular wedding brought together friend Farry’s brother (Manouch) and his fiance (Sean) in holy matrimony. I would not be receiving an invitation, because, well, I’d never met Manouch or Sean. My only connection is Farry, and lord knows she wouldn’t be making me her +1. But this plan had been set in motion before Manouch and Sean were even engaged. In the summer of 2010, when Farry casually mentioned that her brother was getting serious with his girlfriend of a couple years, an intricate plan began to piece itself together, whether I wanted it to or not.

The first step in my master plan was to start this blog that we all know and love. I needed to develop a skill set in something – anything – in order for this plan to get off the ground. Cake decorating? Sure. Whatever.

Next I had to make sure that the engagement became real, as opposed to a casual speculation. So I hid in the bushes and presented Manouch with a ring. “Alright,” he said, “free ring!” Already, this plan was breaking my bank. But phase two was complete.

Step three was probably the easiest. All I had to do was drop hints and shove my cake blog in Farry’s face on a regular basis. She eventually asked me to make her brother’s wedding cake. And it just so happened that the date of the wedding corresponded with the finale of my cake blog how fortunate.

As a precaution, I injected a childhood friend, Brad, into the wedding party. He was Manouch’s best man, and he was an integral part in making sure that all cogs in the plan aligned perfectly. Whether it be arranging for lax security at the reception, talking me up to anyone who would listen, or distracting suspicious guests. He had it covered. He was my man on the inside.

This next part was the most difficult. In order to pull this off, I’d need to be semi-decent at my chosen skill set. So over the next twelve months, I caked, I blogged, I counted down the days to the big event.

My final precaution fell into my lap as friend Colin (Farry’s +1) mentioned in passing that he was thinking about making a Princess Beatrice Hat to wear to the reception. Princess Beatrice wore that god-awful thing at the royal wedding, and half of Farry’s family is British, so it all makes sense. I promptly sped over to a craft store and bought all the materials needed to replicate the hat. That way, if the cake was a total disaster, I could fall back and say “Remember that hilarious hat? I made that!” and people would forgive me and hug me and apologize for accusing me of crashing and fetch me drinks from the open bar.

In reality, friend Brittany made the hat. I was so busy making the cake that when she saw me frantically stretching felt over a styrofoam doughnut, she took pity on me and grabbed the glue gun.

It came out great, didn’t it?

Next up: cake construction. Now here’s the painful part. Seventy-five gum paste roses, friends. Each rose had at least six petals, and each petal was individually manipulated with a ball tool on a slab of soft foam. Each petal was strategically placed around a gum paste bud. Each petal contained a single tear from my eyeball. It took forever. But as I got more comfortable with the technique and more restless with the time commitment, I achieved this sort of effortless sloppy feel, and it worked. I imagine that these gum paste roses are akin to the Jonas Brothers spending hours making their hair look like they had just rolled out of bed.

It should definitely be noted here that much like Brittany and her hat rescue, friend Katie also came over and essentially baked the whole three-tiered cake. Once again I outsmart my tendency to underestimate how long things take to finish by having phenomenal friends.

After two long days of cake prep and a quick half hour of setup at the venue (accompanied by my father, who provided all sorts of help by cutting my cake boards to size, building the cakestand, assisting in the stacking and driving me to the venue – man. I had a lot of help.), I got a breakfast sandwich, went home, and napped. I skipped out on the ceremony part, because who wants to see that. Colin took pictures, that’s good enough.

Gametime. I washed the drool off my face and made myself presentable. This is not something that I do very often, but in order to blend, I needed to at least look like I knew what “presentable” meant.

This was the pivotal moment. A year of my life, gone. And what did I have to show for it? I could not fuck this up. So I did the only thing that made sense. I snuck onto the dance floor during “I’ve Had the Time of My Life,” notoriously the most vulnerable moment in a wedding reception, security-wise.

Well guess what, boners – I did it. Went off without a single hitch. There was much dancing, much drinking, and much hat-wearing. See for yourself.

Now I’ve confirmed that this was not, in fact, a gay wedding between two men named Manouch and Sean, and you’re a little disappointed about it, aren’t you?

Some other pro tips I picked up along the way:

- If the bride gives you a weird “why are you here” look, say that you’re there for cake maintenance, and that you’re not charging them for it.
- If invited guests give you a weird “why are you here” look, meet their gaze twice as hard. You don’t owe them shit.
- Take advantage of the open bar. Nothing compliments forty straight hours of gum paste rose-making like unlimited free alcohol.
- Exhaust every dance move you’ve ever heard of. Then make some up, and give the “oh brother” face when others can’t follow. People will assume that you’re hired talent.

So, yeah. I pulled this one off. I really couldn’t have done it without my friends and family who came by and witnessed my slow descent into insanity as I made rose after rose after rose, and who, without question, jumped into action and assisted me. “Why are you mumbling at the gum paste, Kristin?” they’d ask. “Flermp,” I’d respond.

I don’t even know how to wrap this thing up. It’s been such a big part of my life for what seems like a very long time. So I guess I won’t. Wrap it up, I mean. I’m going to just keep posting shit here, if that’s alright. OKAYBYE

51: Shh, Baby. You’re Beautiful. (Published March 15th, 2012)

Before I apologize for the heap of shit that is this week’s cake, which I realize I’ve been doing a lot lately, let me tell you right off the bat that this post is chock-full of interactive photographs. So roll your cursor over hot spots, click on things, and be prepared to get a face full of HTML magic. And if you’re reading this on a smartphone, you’re poop-outta luck, friend. (ALSO NOTE - If you're reading this in the archives - I mean, if you're reading this on the blogger site - which you most certainly are - you're also poop outta luck, friend.)

ANYWAY

I’m so sorry, guys. It’s Adam’s fault. And if you’re asking whether or not I feel guilty about placing false blame, I’d have to point out that that question is irrelevant. Did I not just tell you that it was Adam’s fault? That is the truth, and not at all a lie.

Whenever Adam Ellis is in town, we make cake plans. This time was no different. We’d been gaining momentum. The Game Boy cake and the Lobster cake remain my most popular posts, which probably has nothing to do with the fact that Adam’s hideous face is all over both of them. As we discussed cake ideas, certain that the hat trick was in the bag, we made the fatal mistake of putting actual effort into the project. We thought about texture, about structure, about materials. Adam bought tools. We over-thought it. Also, this time, there was alcohol.

So it’s 5pm on Friday, and I’ve just gotten out of work. I meet up with Adam at Grand Central Station, and we make our way down to Brooklyn. Adam had just left a meeting with his editor in which they discussed book-related things. We stop at a liquor store and Adam spends 15 minutes lamenting the fact that his vodka of choice is not there. We arrive at my apartment. We have every intention of making an attractive cake. Honestly. But at some point early on, our momentum switched directions. Away from cake city, in the direction of drunktown.

(don’t forget to rollover and click, nuggets) (Actually, do. Do forget. It doesn't work here.)

You may or may not have figured out the original goal for this cake. We wanted to make a few little sushi/sashimi cakes. In our heads, they were adorable. They were small, meticulously crafted, and anatomically correct. They didn’t look anything like this:

Let’s find some other things to blame this failure on. Since moving to Carroll Gardens, I haven’t really made a cake from start to finish in this kitchen area. Up until this point I’ve been spoiled with ample marble countertops, dishwashers, cable television, boats, and hoes. No longer. Nowadays I can only dream of watching 8 hour blocks of Super Sweet Sixteen while rolling fondant onto twenty-five square feet of smooth slate. It only took about an MTV commercial break’s amount of time for Adam and I to clutter up our sad little workspace to the point where one couldn’t roll a cigarette, let alone enough fondant to cover a cake.

Adam came closest to making something halfway presentable. The little salmon sashimi was, in fact, adorable. And then he killed it.

Rollover them pearly whites.

After a solid half hour of believing that we were still going to somehow pull this one off, friends started arriving. Now Katie’s ever-present weird soy crisps and inevitable guacamole were adding to the table clutter. At some point, we threw in the towel. My friends marveled at the artistic process they were witnessing.

Look how funny we are! Look at what light we make of a crap situation! We are to be commended. The rest of the night went beautifully, and there were no more bad things ever, the end.

EXCEPT WAIT – Arlo, my roommate’s new pitbull, revealed the location of roommate Emilie’s elusive earplugs. NSFL – ahhhh too late, you’re already looking at it

AND THEN WHAT – Mark knocked over a $3 bottle of wine, and at the time, I found our clean-up efforts to be the funniest thing I’d ever witnessed

In the end, the focal point of the evening was not cake. Despite our best efforts. Despite our…mediocre efforts. If our efforts were education, they’d be DeVry University, is what I’m trying to say.

FIFTY – The Tragic Tale of the Cake that NO ONE WANTED (Published February 17th, 2012)

I think that my youth lived in my appendix. Hear me out.

This past December I ate a standard sausage egg and cheese brinner sandwich and spent the night writhing in pain while watching an entire season of The Cosby Show on Netflix. The following morning – after approximately zero minutes of sleep – I felt marginally better, called out of work, and asked friend Brittany to take me to the hospital. Which is something that I’ve never done before. The emergency room waiting area gave me vertigo, and the only way I could get across the room was to turn myself into a right angle. It was acute appendicitis. Excuse me – gangrenous acute appendicitis. After 15 hours and learning the hard way that I am violently allergic to morphine, I was admitted, and another 9 hours after that, I was in surgery.

Here’s my point – since the surgery, something has clicked into place. I’m having some sort of quarter-life crisis, and it’s making me examine my recent choices. I’m realizing that if I don’t like the path I’m on, I have to make a conscious decision to change it, and I need to do it now. Either a.) Shit or b.) get off the pot, etc.

Anyway I chose option c.) Spend 3 days making an octopus birthday cake for a friend who is indifferent when it comes to octopi and who is also intolerant of gluten.

My punishment for forgetting about the gluten thing was to haul this deceivingly heavy cake around Brooklyn for a day, practically begging people to eat it. I grew to hate the thing I had once loved.

The journey started at my apartment in Carroll Gardens. It was there that I sort of nailed down this technique of smoothing out one edge of a fondant ribbon to create a ruffled texture.

Yeah so I built the octopus head on top of a jar of nutella, and I can’t really explain why I did that. It just felt like a good idea at the time. Oh and at this point I am in a different location – a friend’s apartment in Brooklyn. I set up shop on the floor, which is a pro tip that you should probably write down.

The poor guy! Does he deserve such treatment? YES

Here I am crankin’ out some fondant ribbon, caught unawares. At this point I’ve been manipulating fondant for upwards of 5 hours and I’ve had just about enough.

The next day at brunch, I foolishly assumed that a.) the servers would exempt us from the cake surcharge based on the fact that it’s the most beautiful cake that anyone has ever seen up close, and b.) that my brunch companions would even want to eat the thing. Needless to say, the cake was not eaten.

And suddenly – MOJITOS

And then OHNO BLOODY MARY

In then end, I stored it away in its little cake tote and brought it to work with me the next morning. At the end of the day, there was still about a third of the cake left, which is a sure sign that I need to work on baking. Usually when baked goods are placed on that counter, lives are in danger.

Everyone ate around the octopus head for whatever reason, so as I went to dispose of the remains I had one last encounter with that asshole octopus face UGH I HATE HIM.