The upside of moving again is that I get to think about my wedding cake. Because it is still in my freezer.
Ummm… Six years later.
There were four layers to my wedding cake, and each layer had a different flavor inside. During the Great Cake Summit of 2000, I sat in the back of the room reading textbooks while my mother and other female relatives tasted about 50 samples. They debated for upwards of two hours.
(And this is just a snippet of how the decisions went on the cake alone. I cannot relay the mind numbingness of the entirety of getting that wedding off the ground. But I can also tell you I tried on upwards of 50 bridal shoes. The hell? They. Are. All. White. And my dress went to the floor, making any shoe invisible for all practical purposes. Sheesh.)
But right now, I am talking about the cake. Specifically, the top layer. You know – that layer you save for a year and eat on your anniversary. Because after a year, the honeymoon is over, but you get one last sweet taste of your wedding day.
The head baker asked me what I would like to have inside that top layer.
“This is just for you and your husband, so chose something you two would really enjoy.”
I shrugged and said, “surprise me.”
This seemed to meet the whimsical heart of the man because he smiled broadly and his eyes began twinkling. Until I said, “it will probably all taste the same after a year.”
Horrified, he said, “oh no. Do not wait that long. Eat it after four months tops. I cannot promise my cake will be edible after that ”
I shrugged. His big brown eyes pleaded, “Go out to a nice dinner in four months. Have some wine. Let the restaurant bring it out for you. But do not wait a year. That is just…”
He shook his head like he had tasted lemon to indicate.
As it turns out, I married a man who is a stickler for tradition. We did not open our wedding gifts until after we were married. (“They are wedding gifts, Anne. We cannot open them until the transaction is complete”) We do not open Christmas presents until it is actually Christmas. And guess what? We don’t eat cake until we have officially completed our year of servitude to the married life.
But before we had served out our year’s sentence, we had to move. Nothing big – about 7 hours away. We made special arrangements for our friends to house it when we put our old refrigerator in storage. Then we packed old Cakey up in a cooler, covered in frozen mixed vegetables and lima bean packets. It rode shotgun next to me while the husband drove the moving truck. Ahh, romance.
When our anniversary did come around, the husband and I unpacked it from the back of the freezer and looked at it. We touched foreheads and whispered loving thoughts about the year and our wedding and our sweet, sweet love. And then we decided it was probably really unwise to eat year old cake. Especially cake that had been preserved by questionably melty packs of vegetables.
But what to do with such memorabilia? Throw it in the kitchen trash with coffee grounds? Bury it in the back yard? Flush it down the toilet like my first pet goldfish?
In the end, we just stuffed it back in the freezer. Where it has stayed. And every move, we have treated it like operation heart transplant and taken heroic efforts to pack it in a cooler (‘don’t crush it, Anne! Oh my God, I think it’s getting crushed!”) and moved it.
When technology catches up with us, we will have it taxidermied and placed on the mantle. I asked my husband once if we shouldn’t just burn it or eat it or do something of great proportions to get rid of it. In uncharacteristic sappiness, he shook his head and said, “as long as we have it, the honeymoon will never be over.”
So… What flavor do you think is in there?
That is one gorgeous looking piece of 5 year old cake. :O)
Well, somehow get to the bottom and eat a little hole in it? 😛
Ok, I was all ‘Toss it’ until I saw it.
OMG. It’s gorgeous.
Honestly..could you shellac/polyurethane it?
Otherwise, you’re going to have to keep it. You can’t throw something away that’s lasted that long and through multiple moves. It’s your albatross I’m afraid.
That is gorgeous. Yes, you will have to do something to preserve it.
We ate ours at the one year. We expected it to taste like crap, (DH has been married before), but I was surprised that it tasted good! Not as good as that day, but definitely good!
Wow, that is beautiful! No ideas on how to keep it, though. Hang on to it long enough and you can just pass it down — the Nahm family answer to the proverbial fruitcake. Good luck!
That’s gorgeous and what your husband said…. wow. Can we swap? Because mine doesn’t have a sentimental bone in his body. You have to save it forever. Maybe you can stick it on top of one of your kids’ cakes so they can pass on the tradition of the world’s oldest frozen wedding cake.
On a stupid note, my thought is that it’s Flava of Love in there. But I may have watched too many episodes on VH1 to have a valid vote.
Just for the record, when I dated a guy in high school, I went to his grandparents 45th wedding anniversary and ate their ORIGINAL wedding cake. I actually consumed cake that was 28 years older than I was. What was I supposed to do? Gag and retch? The old lady was watching me and everything! It was fruit cake and was practically mush there was so much alcohol in it. Disgusting. And you don’t want to know what it looked like. I broke up with the guy a few weeks later. Hmmmm. Coincidence?
That cake is stunning, Anne. You have to figure out a way to keep it forever! I love the heart transplant image….I totally envision you in your scrubs on cake patrol. haha
I’m with Lynn. I was ready to say, “For the love of fondant, throw it out already.” Then I saw it and now the words in my head are “OMFG, that thing is gorgeous. DON’T THROW IT OUT! You CAN’T throw it out.”
Also, your husband is all cute with the sentimentality. My husband and I didn’t keep ours, but we planned in advance to return to the baker and order a new cake just like the top of the wedding cake for our first anniversary. We end up doing a cake almost every year now.
It’s beautiful and amazingly well preserved.
Is it terrible that I just got a blog crush on your DH for the honeymoon comment?
Flavor? Either chocolate or white cake with strawberries.
My husband decided to clean out our freezer a couple years ago and he threw ours out. He never told me until one day I was talking to my mom in front of him and said something about it being in there and I should check on it, see how it is doing. Then he pipes up and said, oh, yeah, I threw that out a year or so ago.
Honeymoon was over and I didn’t even know it.
WOW! With a cake that gorgeous, I’d move it every time we move too. Hmmm, the flavor? I guess it might be a red velvet cake.
Sadly, if that’s the way it’s wrapped, it is probably the flavor of freezer burn. Our cake place gave us strict instructions about how to freeze it, involving putting the cake sans box on a plate in the freezer, then wrapping it in plastic, then putting it in the box and wrapping THAT in plastic and shrink-wrapping it with a hair dryer. It did taste pretty good after a year. We had two pieces and then I put it in the common room at work and my co-workers ate the rest (I didn’t tell them how old it was). So you could always go that route. It is very beautiful though!
My husband won’t let me open our christmas presents until christmas either, damn him!
And yes, I agree with your others posters. You must preserve that beautiful cake. Taxidermied and on the mantle for sho!
OMG- THROW IT OUT or play THE MEANEST JOKE EVER ON YOUR CHILDREN.
My cousin and I got to find out what 10+ year-old cake tasted like when my aunt and my mom defrosted my grandmother’s freezer in the late 70s and discovered the top layer of my aunt’s wedding cake (circa early 1960s).
My cousin and I, seeing the gorgeous cake BEGGED to eat it. Snickering down their sleeves my mom and aunt obliged.
It was revolting. The frostbitten texture is the first sensation- but unfortunately not the last. Imagine eating cardboard with congealed then freeze-dried hardened fat- and that’s just the icing. The cake is this ghastly sponge that brings to mind cobwebs and old socks. The taste memory remains etched in my mind over 2 decades later.
Please, please, please THROW IT OUT. Tell your husband the honeymoon IS OVER if it gets you another 1.5 cubic feet of freezer space.
Plus, Amy’s idea for a new cake every anniversary is so sweet and romantic. Take a picture of the cake to a baker and have it remade in a new mystery flavor that isn’t rancid armpit and congratulate yourself on not traumatizing your kids.
We ATE our wedding cake- EVEN THE TOP (to the protest of many relatives in attendance) and it was DELICIOUS. Someone insisted we keep the topper, but we threw it out before our 3rd anniversary (that’s 6 cubic inches of cabinet space!). I guess I’m not sentimental and I really like eating cake.
Our marriage has lasted 13 years- and we’ve only been hit by one tornado so far.
My parents eloped, so I was raised with an immense fear of traditional weddings. I bought an antique mall gown for $18 (gorgeous satin- 1920s cuts- huge train- looked like it had been made for me) and wore my TEVA sport sandals. We got married at night in a field by a luminaria-lit pond. A grasshopper plunged down my sweetheart neckline during our vows and (in the dim light of a single Coleman lantern upheld by my brother-in-law lawn jockey style). No one but my maid of honor could see what had happened. Everyone, including my husband and the minister, thought I quit repeating the vows because I was backing out at the figurative altar.
The grueling cake tasting story makes me think you should invite your family cake consultants over for tea with a very special cake… don’t warn them in advance.