Getting Real with Wanda Morrissey
It’s that time of year again. My son’s birthday party is this weekend and once more, I’ll be making his birthday cake. No big deal, you say, a lot of moms do that. And you would be right, except I suffer from delusions of grandeur. I think I’m a pastry chef and I’m not; I just spend too much time watching the Food Network.
I’ve designed a large train cake. The blueprints, including notes, fill two pages, and I’ve only allowed myself a day and a half to complete it. I’m either a show off or a sucker for punishment – most likely a bit of both. And I know at some point, while making this cake, I’ll have a breakdown. It happened last year. I’d just discovered fondant and had only used it once before. It was 11:00 at night and my fondant kept cracking on me. I was tired, stressed, and worked up because I didn’t think the cake was going to work.
Imagine my husband’s surprise when I suddenly sunk to the floor and burst into tears, babbling uncontrollably about cake. I did eventually pull myself together, made a fresh batch of fondant and got the cake made. I crawled into bed sometime around 1:00am the day of the party and I’m expecting it’ll go about the same way this year.
I’m also a bit of a perfectionist (my husband would say more than a bit) and I’m never happy with how the cakes turn out. Everyone else goes on about how nice they look but all I can see are the faults. For Jeffrey’s first birthday I made a bathtub cake complete with rubber duckies. This was before I discovered fondant, so the only thing I saw was how bad the icing looked or how bad I thought it looked. Last year I made him Olie (from Rolie Polie Olie, his favorite show at the time) and the only thing I could see was how the tint in the fondant was uneven in a couple of spots. I’m too hard on myself.
So, we’ll see how things go this year. Will I be happy with the way the cake turns out? Will I have another breakdown? Will I have to come up with a plan B at the last possible minute? I’ll be sure to let you all know how it goes next week.
