The story of the anvilcake

[tamarinne]

Per request, here is the story of the anvil cake:

Several weeks ago, meliapet  and I had come up with the idea of making the groom's cake for the reedrover /achaosofkittens  wedding in the shape of an anvil, made out of cookies instead of cake since achaosofkittens does not like cake so much. It was almost entirely her idea, I just tossed out some hints/suggestions/thoughts on how to go about constructing it. I must admit, I did not give the anvil cake another thought after that conversation. After all, *meliapet* is the baker, not me...

I get to meliapet’s on Friday afternoon, and say, "Hi sweetie! How's it going? What can I do to help?" She says, "Make the anvil cake."

Buh... buh.... buh...

She hands me: (1) cookie ingredients, (2) cookie recipe, (3) little baby anvil to use as a model. Muttering, "you SO owe me, bitch", I get to work. I start by tracing the anvil faces onto pieces of paper so I can do scale drawings of each level of the anvil so I can figure out how to bake the cookie layers. I make up a double batch of cookie dough (meliapet says, "don't you think it should be a triple batch?" I say, "Surely not!" *sigh*) and start rolling out layers onto her biggest cookie sheet. The first three layers are carefully shaped, the oven is preheated, I go to put the cookies in.... and the cookie sheet is TOO BIG FOR THE OVEN. I ask you! Who owns cookie sheets that don't fit in their oven????

So we scrape the carefully shaped layers onto smaller sheets. I bake and bake and bake and bake. Meanwhile, meliapet is still hard at work on the three REAL wedding cakes (which, incidentally, were about 10,000 times more beautiful than the misshapen pile of cookie dough I was making). Come evening, I'm running out of cookie dough and patience, so we decamp for dinner and Serenity with gsh and his sweetie and a friend of theirs.

The next morning I get up and stumble into the kitchen. meliapet has thoughtfully piled up all the cooled layers of cookie, and the stack looks NOTHING like an anvil. The stack is also much too short. So, cursing under my breath, I whip up another double batch of cookie dough. I'm baking, I'm baking... it finally occurs to me that I should be trimming/shaping the cookie layers as they come out of the oven (boy, that sure would have been smart to think of when I STARTED...), meliapet's friend shadeofnight  comes over, and I'm running out of cookie dough again.

And then I got cocky. I decided what needed to happen was that I needed to make little cookie tools to go on the cookie anvil. Man, I don't know what the hell I was thinking, but if I ever try to make cookie tools again, stop me. meliapet and shadeofnight were laughing so hard at those pathetic, crumbly tools that they were practically lying on the ground holding their sides. Finally I threw away the cookie tools, snarled at the peanut gallery, and started assembling the anvil. Cookie layer, chocolate frosting layer, cookie layer, chocolate frosting layer... meliapet pipes up, "Hey, it looks like an ironing board!". GAH.

But I slapped the last layer on, we covered the sides with chocolate frosting and suddenly... like a miracle... we were all staring in disbelief at the cookie anvil that had appeared on meliapet’s kitchen table. meliapet wrote "Acme" on the side in white frosting, and we were good to go. Off we trundled to the wedding, cakes in tow. When we got there, we brought reedrover and achaosofkittens to come look at the cakes. The look on his face when he saw the anvil cake made the WHOLE thing worthwhile. He did not know he was getting an anvil cookie, and he looked like a kid who has just received the best of all possible Christmas presents.

And when it came time to cut the anvil, I have never seen so many boys fighting to be allowed to help. We had bought a ball peen hammer and a chisel to hack off chunks of cookie/frosting goodness. All it took was Home Depot tools, and suddenly the boys were ALL over this cake cutting business!

So, all in all, it was a very satisfying experience. In the end. But... meliapet? You SO owe me, bitch. :)

Comments

[reedrover]

::grin::

Thanks for the story! Thanks for the contribution and all the smiles.

following reedrover...

[beaq.livejournal.com]

And to be PUBLICALLY PRESENTED! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Such (valid) faith in the transferability of artistic skills.

You ought to ask CK about his patented cookie-breaking hammer.


Was the teeny anvil, um, made of brass and marked S.F.N.S., by any chance? :-)

Re: following reedrover...

[tamarinne.livejournal.com]

*puzzled grin* No, it was a little steel anvil that was painted red on the sides.

But yeah, it was kind of nerve-wracking right up until the end, especially considering how gorgeous the real cakes were. I *really* didn't want to be Quasimodo shambling in with a horrific mess of cookies and frosting next to the beautiful 3-tiered cake... :)

Re: following reedrover...

[beaq.livejournal.com]

*puzzled grin* No, it was a little steel anvil that was painted red on the sides.

Oh, well. ;-)


I *really* didn't want to be Quasimodo shambling in

I KNOW! Aaaaaa! At a WEDDING!

You have now learned the secret of the transformative power of decent frosting.

Re: following reedrover...

[tamarinne.livejournal.com]

"You have now learned the secret of the transformative power of decent frosting"

*bows to sensei* You are wise in the ways of Cookie Do, Master. I learn from your teachings. :)

Re: following reedrover...

[meliapet.livejournal.com]

And that batch of chocolate fudge was good on other things as well....like...um...fingers yeah. :)

[shadeofnight.livejournal.com]

*smiles*

It was all in good fun (well our fun at least ^_^ )

*slowly backs away not exposing his back, just in case*

*grins*

p.s. It did look good at the end, and all that work you put in paid off *nods*

[tamarinne.livejournal.com]

*laugh* That's right. Back away from the crazy lady with the cookie tools. ;)

[reedrover]

... The crazy lady with the hammer and the Big Chisel, you mean.

[tamarinne.livejournal.com]

Hey, yeah! *grabs up serious tools, starts chasing shadeofnight* ;)

[meliapet.livejournal.com]

Hey now! At least I had all the ingredients bought and the chocolate fudge made already! hehehe

Yeah yeah - I owe ya. *giggle* December in Vegas baby!

I never used that cookie sheet since I have 3 others that are normal size. hehehe now I know and will promptly put it in a box somewhere.hehe

The cookie tools tasted good.....*snicker*

And very true....after some slathering of chocolate fudge frosting, it suddenly looked right! You ROCK! I wouldn't have been able to do that groom's cookie at all since I was a bit behind with cakes.

The looks from CK and reedrover were priceless! He looked like a little boy in a candy shop all smiley and wide eyed and RR was glowing with a "Wow! That's way more than I expected." comment on the cakes. I was thrilled and that made it all WORTH IT!

[achaosofkittens.livejournal.com]

:) Thank you both very much!

I need a visual

[ensignredshu.livejournal.com]

Did anyone take a picture of this?