Narrative and Cake

This is what happened.

I needed (still need, truth be told) to practice using the DHS-inspected topsy turvy cake pans before trying to make the pirate cake this coming Sunday. But I can never just make a cake. Everything in my world must have a narrative. There is nothing I can do to change this—it’s bred in the bone at this point. So there I was, flipping aimlessly through the channels late on Saturday night and considering my options, when I stumbled upon The Song Remains the Same on Palladia. I happened to turn it on during “The Rain Song” (one of my favorite Zep songs, though who can choose just one or even ten?) and that gloriously ridiculous scene of Robert Plant riding through the countryside on his way to rescue a damsel (or twenty). Oh, the horse, the hair, the mushrooms, the…“sword!”  Is there a way not to love any part of this? If there is, I’ve never found it. The film never disappoints, nor the band, nor the music. Especially not the music. And so it seemed obvious; a Led Zeppelin cake. Why not? In fact, I thought, amazed that the idea hadn’t occurred to me before, why not a whole series of rock and roll cakes? I have always wanted to recreate the cake on the Let It Bleed album cover after spending so much of my childhood poring over it and others in my dad’s collection (Sticky Fingers and The Velvet Underground & Nico were especially intriguing and unfathomable at the time). But the Rolling Stones cake would require a lot of planning, I decided. Maybe for my dad’s birthday coming up in July. If I get it right, my dad will appreciate it; he and I have had heated arguments about Zep vs. Stones. Well, one heated argument, really. After that, I realized it wasn’t worth arguing. The Stones are my dad’s band. Zep is mine.

So I set about building the narrative. First, I made these:

 out of tempered chocolate. Then I made a gnarled, bare tree out of modeling chocolate I’d made the day before and the leaves falling all around out of marzipan I’d also just made. Then I made the lemon—because one can’t really have a Zep cake without a lemon. Then I made a hobbity wizard out of marzipan. This took quite a while and by then I’d put in half a day. The stairway and whatever else I could think of would have to wait. Time to make the cake—tangerine flavored of course. This is where things started to go wrong. The topsy turvy cake pan is very deep on one end and shallow on the other. How much batter to put into the 8-inch pan (which, it turns out, is actually 7.5 inches, so already not what was advertised)? I turned to the Internet, which told me to put in 7 cups of batter. Yes, nobody’s fault but mine that I trust information from the Internet, but still. 7 cups seemed way too much so I put in 5. It rose beautifully and smelled great. Because the pan is so deep, I left it in the oven for quite a bit longer than usual. I was a bit nervous about this, but when I first pulled it out the cake looked fine. For about 10 minutes. Then the entire middle of it sank like a lead… 

What to do? 

The outer ring of the cake was perfect and because I loathe wasting ingredients I couldn’t stand the idea of tossing the whole thing. There is always something to be salvaged, no matter how far off track the narrative seems to have gone.

“Make a trifle out of it,” said G (who was becoming anxious at the thought of an evening without a cake on offer).

Brilliant.

A bit later, after the addition of berries, sugar, amaretto, and freshly whipped cream, we had trifle. I gave it a taste to make sure it was all working properly and then couldn’t stop eating it. Derailed by trifle. It happens. 

And at that point I was forced to ramble on. My sister-in-law is celebrating her birthday tomorrow and I had promised her a cherry pie (see: Cherry Love ). The cherry pie has now been made and is on its way to my SIL. And I am back to thinking about the pirate cake (which will not be made in the topsy turvy cake pans) and the elements I need to make for that narrative.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, my characters wait patiently for a book cake on which to land.