My wife and I don't seem to have a lot of free weekends. From shooting weddings to friends birthday and anniversary parties, we're pretty busy. It's a good busy, as we really enjoy the company of our friends, and I am always happy when I have a camera in my hand. A couple of years ago, my wife started making cakes for our friends and family. It started off when she made one of our friends a cake for their son's birthday party. Then she took a class - then another one. Now it has grown to something that sees her making 30 plus cakes a year. So now our weekends are NEVER free. :-) But again, at least it's something we love doing.
I want to take you back to my childhood very briefly. My father was a police officer with Toronto, but his real passion was trains. He was a model railroader. He loved to build scenes and paint these little tiny characters. It was a stress releif for him, after a hard day he would come home and "play with his trains" as my mother used to say. But those trains were not toys, and we were not allowed to "play" :-)
He modeled HO scale, which is pretty small. My father was not a small man. He had huge hands - something I have in common with him. I could never understand the patience he had to paint faces on these little figurines that were no taller than his thumb nail. I could never figure it out - that is until recently.
My wife comes up with the cake ideas - she is the baker and creative director. I am just labour - colouring fondant and icing, washing the bowls and mixer, that kind of stuff. But I get DO to help with the details of the cake. This is where I now, once again, find myself connecting with my father. I can spend hours modelling fondant trees, or beer cans, or "angry birds" and not even notice the time. It's very often that I find myself up late on Friday night rolling a bunch of fondant pearls for a wedding cake that we have to deliver on Saturday afternoon. Here's one of our most recent cakes - one we did this weekend for a friend's son's 11th birthday.
 | ||
| Bird in the tree. |
I really enjoy putting the time and effort into a cake - but what really makes me smile is the look on the person's face that gets the cake. In this case, Alek was very happy with his cake. It makes all the late nights and all the back pain worth it.
Here's another cake we made last weekend for our friend's 40th birthday party. To put the cake in context, you should know that this friend refers to herself as a "princess".
 |
| A wedding cake that Sonia and I recently completed. The lace is modeled after the bride's dress. |
Who knew that a piece of pink fondant would help me understand my father just a little bit more. I wish I would have come to this understanding while he was still alive, but if he was around he would probably tease me about "playing with fondant" or something ... :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment