The Wedding Cake that Nearly Wasn't

When a girl from church got engaged, I offered to do the wedding cake. This was several months ago. The design she chose was quite simple and she didn't care what flavor the cake would be. It was going to be a pretty easy cake.

I bought the appropriate sized pans well in advance so the proportions would look right for the number of expected guests, practiced piping pearls, and because of the expected high humidity and temperatures for this weekend, practiced Swiss meringue buttercream icing.

On Monday I made a practice cake and purchased all the ingredients for 7 batches of cake and 5 double batches of icing. Tuesday, I measured out all the dry ingredients so that I could save time on baking day and because I have a tendency to measure wrong when I get in a hurry. That was the end of where things went well.

Tuesday night my son started puking, he continued all night and into Wednesday.

Thursday I got my first batch of cake mixed and ready to go into the oven, when I noticed the temperature was 238 degrees instead of 325. I thought the thunder storm made the electricity blink and that had messed up the oven. When I reset it, the whole oven quit.

The repairman came but couldn't fix the oven because he didn't have the part. However, he was able to tell me that our computerized control panel was the problem and since we had just replaced it in April, it was still under warranty. We got in touch with Sears Parts Direct, only to find out that the expedited part would be to our house Monday at the earliest.

I spent Thursday afternoon organizing and moving half my kitchen into the Jeep to take to a friends's house. After 4 hours baking at their house, I reloaded the Jeep and headed back home. The smell of cake in the Jeep turned my stomach.

Now, since I'm pregnant, lots of smells bother me, but cake isn't normally one of the smells that get to me. By the time I got home I was wiped out, more than normal. I went to bed only to get up again 30 minutes later. I thought it was morning sickness, but by the 4th time I woke up, it was obvious I had caught my son's bug.

Friday morning I wasn't any better. I slept until 2. Once I woke up I couldn't stand up for more than 5 minutes without dry heaving. That lasted into the evening. When I finally was able to hold some food down, I put on a medical mask and made the icing.

About the time I mixed up the last batch of icing, I went to wash my hands and the water was off. We have had a horrible smell in the laundry room and my husband couldn't find the cause when he crawled under the house. So, he was going to clean all the drains. When he moved the dishwasher, he discovered a leak, which because of moving the dishwasher, was then spraying water everywhere. Lowe's was closed, so no more water for the rest of the night.

Thankfully this morning I woke up feeling normal and Lowe's opened at 7:00 so the water was turned back on by 7:30 and I was back in the cake decorating business.

Overall, the cake turned out pretty well, especially considering the week we have had.

The picture was taken under florescent light and my camera doesn't adjust for the type of lighting, so the colors are off a little, but you can still see the results. The flowers are silk, the rest of the cake is buttercream.