Slice of Life I swear that every wedding cake I make will be my last. But the sweet reward keeps me coming back WRITTEN AND FOOD STYLED BY
Camilla Wynne PRODUCED BY
Aimee Nishitoba PHOTOGRAPHY BY
Erik Putz
26 CHATELAINE • JULY/AUGUST 2022
we cruise down the highway at top speed, windows down and Rolling Stones blasting from the radio, I wish I’d waited to rub the fondant-covered wedding cake with Crisco—a baker’s trick for adding shine, but also sticky—until we got to the venue. My friend Maggie and I are balancing three tiers of cake on our laps, crammed into the front seat of a lime-green pickup driven by her dad. He sings along merrily, gesticulating while smoking a cigarette. As the wind sends ash blowing through the truck cab, I try to will it away from the cake with the power of my mind. I’d arrived in Vancouver a few days earlier to make a wedding cake for an old friend—my gift to the couple. I was staying with Maggie, who would be my wedding date. I’d packed cake pans, palette knives and a bench scraper after sending her a list of all the equipment I needed that she might not have. She met me at the train station and, after a celebratory meal of karaage and kimchi udon at an izakaya, we retired for the night. Maggie left for work the next morning. While I wandered through her loft, searching for coffee, I noticed a problem. Maggie’s kitchen, where I would ostensibly make a wedding cake for 100 people over the next few days, was equipped with just a hot plate, a toaster oven and a mini fridge. Everything I take for granted as a pastry chef came into stark relief. Never would I have thought to include a standard-sized fridge and oven on my equipment list— though, to be fair, Maggie could make a mean fruit pie in that toaster oven. In her typical breezy fashion, she assured me we could simply make the cake at a friend’s house. As it turned out, that friend’s oven didn’t have a working temperature dial—something I discovered after hauling flour, sugar and butter for what felt like a thousand long Vancouver blocks. Not so bad, then, that I only ended up burning one of six cake layers! The next day I rode the bus up Main St. with yet more ingredients to the condo where another friend was staying. There, my 12-inch cake pan only just barely slid, with a gentle shove, into an unusually small oven. Still, on the bus ride home, the cake was golden and warm in my lap. It was lemon poppy seed, to be filled with homemade raspberry jam and lemon curd, iced with buttercream and covered in fondant. I managed to assemble it in Maggie’s makeshift kitchen, only having to run once to the restaurant where she worked to borrow a pastry brush. The
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