Saturday, May 21, 2016

Wedding on the Mountain


I had the first wedding of the official wedding season Saturday. I started the day by attending a meeting of a local quilt guild that I just discovered but I want to share that experience in another post. This will be about the interesting cake delivery I had.

I make around forty wedding cakes a year and most are delivered to a few beautiful venues here in the Hood River valley. Once in awhile I have a special delivery to a place I go to infrequently or to a private residence. Today I went to a venue I've always wanted to be invited to but as yet had not been- the Timberline Lodge high on Mount Hood, just above the timber where the rock and snow begin, as the name implies. It is the Northwest American version of a castle, built in the 1930's during Roosevelt's WPA program. Every visitor here gets taken to tour the lodge.



At our home (1500 feet elevation) it was cloudy and cool when I left, 55 degrees, not raining. When I arrived at the lodge (7000 feet elevation) it was 35 and snowing with fog obliterating the view of the summit.

Since I had never delivered a cake to the lodge before, and the lodge is very large, I had to have assistance from an employee to get the cake into the building and down the right hallways, up the right elevators, to the "Raven's Nest" where the wedding preparations were taking place.

But first, let me tell you about the cake I made. 

It was for a middle aged couple, both with families, and they knew exactly what they wanted- vanilla cake with lemon curd and lavender buttercream. They wanted the icing to be textured to look like tree bark. They showed me a photo of the flower decoration plan to be done by the florist- very elaborate- practically covering the whole cake with cascading blooms. (I was somewhat disappointed that I didn't get to do that part- it's my favorite). They were using copper as the color accent so I used a copper food dye to paint the bark textures on the icing. 

Though it was a small wedding with forty guests they wanted a cake with presence and leftovers so I made four tiers, the largest out of styrofoam iced with buttercream-

                                   As you can see the icing has a lot of texture.

I stacked the cakes with internal supports for stability and began brushing liquid color in a shimmery copper color.

                                     
         I wasn't satisfied with the look. (Hmmm...how does one make buttercream look like bark??)

         So I tried scraping the icing with the edge of a metal spatula and liked the effect much better.
                                    
                    A lot of the texture was removed but I still felt it looked more barky than before.

You'll understand the request for a bark-like cake when you see the setting for the ceremony. I did.

       

In a private upper room in the lodge with a view of the (foggy) mountain summit there were potted wild fir trees and a LIVE aisle runner in place.

                            
                                                    Moss and ferns and flowers. Amazing.


                The florist was just beginning to place flowers on the ceremony arch when I arrived.


                                         

She told me that the floral decoration on the cake would start at the top and cascade around it and drape off the table. I'm looking forward to seeing some photos of the finished creation!

I felt very privileged to have been chosen by the couple for their very special, literally at the top, wedding.

2 comments:

  1. Oh, Wow. So very elaborate. I do hope all those flowers cascading did not weigh down the cake and somehow misshape it - it looks and sounds delicious, lavender and all. Please let us see if you get pictures of the finished products.
    And quilt guild.... sounds interesting.

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  2. Wow! That room looks enchanting. Awesome job on the cake! Thanks for sharing. :)

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