Shaecation

With the advent of shows like Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes, the stakes have been raised for the casual home baker. Sure, nobody really expects you to be able to make a fire-breathing cake or one with moving pieces, but in the back of your mind, you still want it to impress that way. There was a time when making the cake look like the relatively humble but attractive photo in the magazine/book/website you found it on was a lofty enough goal. Now even that seems too trivial a goal.

For casual bakers like myself, getting a cake onto the table can be a bit of a struggle in and of itself. First you have to pick a recipe (a complex goal in and of itself in the age of world wide webbery). Once you’ve picked your recipe, then you have to prepare the batter and actually bake it. Just knowing when the cake is ready to come out can be a significant enough challenge (for the record, I have learned to rely on two tests: inserting a cake tester in the center of the cake, as well as gently pressing down on the cake – a cooked batter will spring back, where a raw batter will just sink).

For some of us, this is where the real challenge begins, though. Now admittedly, I tend to be much harder on myself than my friends and coworkers. Let’s be honest… When most people hear the words “free cake,” the last thing on their minds is how well the cake was iced. But when you’ve invested your time and energy into a project, you eventually get tired of prefacing the introduction of it with “I know it doesn’t look like much, but it really tastes good.”

Difficult though it may be to admit, my cakes are never going to look like Duff’s or Buddy’s. That’s okay, though. After all, you don’t generally get yourself a television show by doing what any shmoe can do themselves. Still, sometimes you really want your cakes to make an impression.

Recently, my coworkers volunteered me to bake a cake for a fellow co-worker’s last week of work before going on maternity leave. Not content to just make a run-of-the-mill cake, I began searching online for ideas and stumbled across a variety of baby-related cake moulds, including a stork, a rattle, etc… Without a week or two to wait for one of these moulds to arrive via mail, I quickly sent an email to Lora Lonesberry, owner of Creating Occasions. I know I’ve blogged about taking cooking/baking classes at Creating Occasions before, but it’s also a fantastic resource for baking/cake supplies.

I stopped by the store and began to leaf through their catalogue of moulds when I stumbled onto a three-dimensional duck cake mould. My eyes lit up with the wonder of a four-year-old as my mind began to reel. When I asked Lora how complicated this would be, she explained that it was actually rather simple. It turns out that you don’t just bake two halves and connect them. Rather, you fill one half with batter, attach the top half and the top half is simply filled by the risen cake.

Imagining the look on my coworkers’ faces, I knew that this was a cake I just had to make. I paid a paltry $3.99 to rent the mould for a day (that’s right, you can rent the moulds rather than buying one for a one-time baking and being stuck with it – and the bill that goes along with it – forever).

The mould came with a full set of instructions on how to bake and decorate it (with a couple of options depending on your taste and skill). The instructions offered that even boxed cake mix would work – although I prefer to bake my own with fewer chemicals – but that chocolate or yellow cakes (from a mix or from scratch) would be the best bet for their density.

As you can see from the photo, the cake baked without a hitch. Because of the size of our office, I decided to add a cake pond below the duck (using a flourless chocolate cake that I reasoned would be sturdy enough to support the weight of the duck). The only thing I’d do differently next time is to use a crumb coating (a thin layer of icing which captures the crumbs, resulting in a smoother, more professional final product. Unfortunately I was running short on frosting, so I had to skip that step.

To no surprise, the cake was a huge hit! I adorned the cake with four little ducks that I bought at Creating Occasions (they’ve got cake decorations for just about every occasion) for each of the expectant mother’s four children (well, three and a fetus at the time) after my search – and Rose’s, too – for marshmallow Peeps proved a fool’s errand more than a month after Easter.

I’m never going to be Duff or Buddy Valastro. I’m okay with that, though. Especially if I can still impress my friends and coworkers with only the pittance of skill that I already have!