I delivered a wedding cake today.  This is not particularly newsworthy.  I do this on occasion.  I would like to do this on more frequent occasions.  If you need a cake, please call me.  I love making cakes.  Wedding cakes, birthday cakes, shower cakes, cakes for absolutely no reason whatsoever...I love making cakes.  

K.  So.  The cake.  And more importantly, the story of the cake.

First off...the process of making this cake was pretty great.  I have made cakes that, overall, stressed me out more than anything...and occasionally, cakes that have made me feel like, hey, I might actually kind of know what I'm doing.  I proved to myself that I could paint a King and Queen of hearts and a "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada" sign with a toothpick and gel paste colors.  Yes, it took me three hours to do those things, but I did it.  And I was relatively pleased with the outcome.  I also proved to myself that I could make semi-realistic looking poker chips out of fondant.  I kind of got my groove back with my marshmallow fondant--I'm pretty sure it had just been so long since I seriously made fondant that I forgot all the tricks I had learned before.  After all of this, I was pretty confident that something would go incredibly wrong with the cake before the day ended.  I had to deliver it to Horseheads, NY...so I had plenty of time for things to go wrong.  I stacked and decorated the cake minus the poker chips, cards and sign on Friday night, with plans to finish decorating once I arrived at the reception site. Other than an irritatingly flawed yellow frosting line above the red fondant-ribbon border...the cake itself made me pretty happy.  I headed out this morning...and even had time for a 15 minute stop to visit my mom on the way through town.

As I walked into the reception site...something suddenly looked very wrong.  My bride and groom got married in Las Vegas last month...and their reception was being held for friends and family who weren't there with them to celebrate.  The theme...you guessed it...Vegas!!  The cake reflected their theme.  The site I walked into...very elegant, very formal, very wedding, very purple.  As I walked with the bartender to the cake table, I knew something was wrong...and looked at the table to read "Amanda and Caleb Drake" on the centerpiece...yeah.  I explained to the girl that I definitely was not in the correct location...and rushed back to my car, where I attempted to reach someone who would know where I needed to deliver the cake.  Thank God my aunt knew where to go...I had written down Elk's Lodge.  Nope.  American Legion.  

Sigh.

7 minutes later, I arrived at the correct reception location...where my bride waited impatiently for me to arrive (about 20 minutes late)...and she definitely liked the cake.  That might be an understatement.  She couldn't believe it looked so much like the picture she sent me, which made me...hmm...ecstatic would be a good word.  I threw in some things that made her cake a little different from the one in the picture she found...but it was definitely "inspired" by someone else's creativity. :)  All of the girls from the kitchen had to come check out the cake (and I have to tell you...having people stand there and go on and on...it's flattering, don't get me wrong...but dang...how embarrassing!  I definitely prefer the drop-off/set-ups where I'm the only one there other than waiters setting up tables.).  One of the women went into the kitchen just raving about the cake.  In the kitchen stood a woman attending her aunt's funeral dinner...held in the room next to the reception room.  She asked if she could come in and see the cake, and they wandered in.  She introduced herself as Lisa, I think, and it came up that she worked for Ace of Cakes.  I kind of brushed it off (as I stuck on poker chips, gold coins, and all the paint-work), figuring more than just Duff Goldman's show on TLC probably went by that name, and she asked me about details--what kind of fondant, how I made the cards and sign, etc.  We talked tips of the trade for the next 5 or 6 minutes...and it suddenly became apparent (as she told me about the Cricut machine for cutting gumpaste, and a machine for rolling fondant evenly, and the $16,000, 8-tier cake for which she and 8 other people spent the past six months making sugar flowers...) that she worked for Ace of Cakes, behind the scenes, not on the show.  Her specialty is calligraphy.  I think it was that moment that I started feeling...completely inadequate.  She pulled out her camera phone and took a picture of my cake, telling me repeatedly how great she thought it was.  Then she took a picture of me with my cake, and took my webpage address, and told me she was going to get my cake and picture put on the website. 

Nothing may come of this.  I realize that.  She may not have that kind of pull.  

But wow.  Was I flattered.

Today might be the best day ever with my cake business.  And even if nothing comes of it ever...it was still pretty great.  And if the worst thing that happens with a cake I'm thrilled with is that I almost deliver it to the wrong location...I think I'll take it.

Hey.  Need a cake?  Call me.  I make 'em.