Baking a Book...don't judge a book or cake by its cover!

As I was preparing my latest cake, celebrating member birthdays for my writers group, it dawned on me how similar the baking process was to the writing process. Especially with this cake, baked in the shape of a giant, open book, with its particular challenges. I have to say that, in the end, it was delicious and well-received, but it was quite a journey getting there!

Choosing the Confection Type/Literary Vehicle:

First, I had to make a choice of the type of baked goods.

Cupcakes/Short Stories? Cookies/Poetry? Cake/Novel? OK, cake it was. A full-fledged novel of a cake seemed most appropriate for a birthday party.

 Flavor/ Genre:

Chocolate/Mystery? Coffee/Literary? Coconut/Fantasy? Citrus/Humor?

Oh, we all needed a good laugh, so citrus was my choice.

 

Cake Size/Word Count:

Single Layer-Double Layer-Large Sheet/60,000-120,000 Words?

Well, the book-shaped cake pan I purchased for the occasion determined this—a large, very large sheet cake, the equivalent of three cake mixes worth. With the frosting, my cake weighed in at a whopping ten pounds. (I weighed myself, empty-handed, on our bathroom scale, then stepped back up on the scale balancing the finished cake in my hands.)

This was not going to be a fast read! If it were a book, it would be pushing close to a 200,000- word tome. At least there would be plenty extra cake to hand out to all the group members to take home to their families!

 

Customizing the Cake/Literary Voice:

Just as the author’s own unique word choice and narrative style determine the voice of a book, so does adding those extras to a basic recipe to make the end product special. I normally make my baked goods completely from scratch, but this time I began with three boxes of orange cake mix to which I added/exchanged some extra ingredients (orange juice, sour cream, vanilla instant pudding mix, orange zest) that made it sing with moist flavor.

 

Icing the Cake/Mixing Genres:

All went well until I got to the icing of the cake. I wanted a lemony cream cheese-based frosting for the balance of flavors, but I needed a frosting that would dry firm enough to allow me to write on it with edible markers. So...I created a combo icing, much like mixing genres. (Fantasy and humor. Literary and mystery. Harder than I thought!)

 

First, I laid down my yummy cream cheese frosting and let it chill well in the refrigerator. Then, I (attempted) to coat the cream cheese frosting with buttercream frosting. All that lovely, soft, slippery cream cheese icing didn’t make a very sturdy foundation for the heftier buttercream! And, sadly, even after allowing the buttercream topping to dry, it still wasn’t firm enough for writing with the edible markers. Argh! So, I made matters even more complicated by adding medallions of firm, glossy royal icing on top of the buttercream (on top of the cream cheese on top of the orange cake.) By then, I was running low on time to have my masterpiece completed for the night’s meeting.

 

Checking online for ways to make royal icing firm up faster, I discovered the quickest method was warming it with a heat gun. My husband just happened to have one of those in his workshop, so I plugged it in and set to firming up the royal icing. Of course, you can already see the problem. Heat is great for drying out royal icing in a jiffy, but also for melting its buttercream and cream cheese underpinnings. Having failed to first create a high enough border between the medallions and the rest of the top of the cake, the confectionary dam broke in places and royal icing oozed out of its assigned position. My cake was taking on a decidedly surreal Salvador Daliesque appearance.

 

But! I finally wrestled the frosting back into place (kind of) and was able to write words on the royal icing medallions. Not beautifully, but at least somewhat legibly. Then, there was the challenge of storing the cake before its evening presentation. You guessed it. Mixing genres and frosting were, again, the issue. Cream cheese frosting requires refrigeration, but the moisture inside a fridge will soften royal icing and make it run. Noooooo! So, that’s why, our home office that has its own window air conditioner was sealed off with the AC running full blast. We turned it into a giant, dry, cooling area for the giant mixed-genre cake!

 

The time arrived for transporting the cake to the meeting. With no container big enough to safely cover it, I sat in the backseat of our car, balancing the cake on my lap. “No sudden stops or fast corners!” I instructed my husband.

 

We made it with the cake in one piece and it was, after all the drama, a hit with our beloved group members. They are astute enough readers and writers to know you can’t always judge a book by its cover! (And they know me well enough to know my heart was in the right place even if I did make some misguided frosting decisions.) So, lesson learned. Think ahead when baking or writing and if you decide to mix genres, be sure they are compatible!

Thanks for stopping by! Y'all come back, now.

Kate