Bake a cake

The biggest highlight of the past month, food-wise, was having the opportunity to make a wedding cake for a stranger. Well, a friend of a friend.

I was introduced to T, the bride, through a friend at Sunset. T lives in Boston, and our mutual friend thought we'd hit it off. We exchanged "let's have coffee" emails and that was that, until she emailed me for some restaurant recommendations. She and her fiancé had decided to elope to San Francisco. Where should they go for dinner afterward? Oh, and they both have the same birthday, June 26, so their wedding day was also going to be their joint birthday.

Who wouldn't find that plan at least a little bit romantic and inspiring? Actually, I know several people, but they just came out of divorces, and I don't blame them. Once you see the flip side of something, it's hard to get caught up in the flourishes. But meanwhile, I had a bunch of time on my hands. So I said "Go to Quince or Fleur de Lys. And hey! Let me make you a wedding cake."

After I hit "send", it occurred to me that this was the sort of offer that scares people. It could certainly read as an odd, vaguely inappropriate idea to propose to a stranger. I wondered if she'd worry that saying "yes" obliged her to, I dunno, be my best friend for life. There was a good chance she'd just thank me for the recommendations and politely ignore the cake part. But she got it.

The cake was made up of two layers, with each layer split and filled. Based on the couple's favorite flavors, I made a tres-leches layer cake for the bottom section, then put a simple chiffon cake with lemon-mango filling (really just store-bought mango butter doctored with lemon juice) on top. I frosted the whole thing with whipped cream and covered my mistakes with roses. It was my first wedding cake and I'm no master. But man, it was fun (that's the bride with the just-delivered cake). It's an honor when the food you cook can have a place of importance in someone's life.