Chalk It Up To Experience

There are so many interesting and unusual styles of cake circulating around the Internet. I hear them calling out to me to try them. Often, my hands are tied because customers are too specific with their requests. You can take just so many liberties with a soccer ball cake, for example. However in this case, an engagement party for a young couple, I had carte blanche to do whatever appealed to me. I love people like that!

The chalkboard cake is a relatively new phenomenon, but it’s at least five years old. That’s a long time to wait to get to make one. Finally the day had arrived.

I had no idea how to go about it.

But you’re all familiar with the old adage, “If at fifteenth you don’t succeed, try try again!” Here’s the problem. My strengths do not lie in drawing freehand. I had originally planned to write the couple’s names on the cake, but calligraphy, or drawing at all, on a vertical surface proved simply impossible. What to do? Logic dictated that I choose another style. Nobody need ever know of my humiliating failure. Well logic be damned, I didn’t care how long it took. This couple was getting a chalkboard cake or the engagement was off.

I was impressed with the variety of imaginative (unsuccessful) solutions that I managed to come up with before hitting on the winning method. They included tracing, laser cutting, taking drawing classes. Ultimately, I used a stencil placed firmly on a horizontal surface to draw the birds, and then transferred it to the cake. I know you’re wondering why I didn’t think of that earlier. So am I.

The intricate peony on the top, which appears to be the most difficult element of this cake, was a snap in comparison.