wedding cakes

She made her own wedding cake in 1970, she was married in 1949.
Perhpas it wasn't tradition, or maybe they couldn't afford it, but Mom never had a wedding cake on her special day.
I have seen the pictures of the bridal party. Dad wore a suit...reminds me of a zoot suit, and mom also wore a suit...but hers was white.
She had on this cute little pillbox hat and carried some flowers.
Her arm is intertwined with dad's and she is radiant.
The bridesmaids also wore suits. They look oh so very 1940s...think of Bugle Boy of Company B, Frank Sanatra or perhaps some other old movie and there you have them.

Later on, when my Aunt A. expressed interest in taking a class in cake decorating mom went with her. Mom was the best cake baker around. No one could make a moister, sweeter, better tasting cake. So she carpooled with her sister and they went to a local high school and took lessons.

Her first cake was a basket cake. It had little wicker basket looking designs with sweet peas, roses and daisies on it.
Then came the fruit cake..with grapes, oranges, leaves and other things pouring out of another type of basket.

I can't remember the 3rd cake, or the 4th, but I do know that by the 5th cake we were very sick of cake. Dad quickly solved this problem by going to the local sewing store and buying a large piece of foam. He cut it in the shape of a large round cake and after that, mom iced it and took it to class with her. When she brought it home, it was beautifully decorated. Then she would scrape off the icing and wash the foam.
On one occasion the cake looked so beautiful that she wanted to take it to work with her. The people had been spoiled by her weekly cakes and missed them, so she took it to work...and presented it to her boss. I was not there to see his face when he tried to cut into a foam cake, but mom laughed about it for a long time and the boss proudly took the cake up to his boss and pulled the same joke on him.

The class went on for about 12 weeks and the last cake was the wedding cake.
Mom looked through books for a long time before she found "her wedding cake."
She decorated it and took it to class mostly finished...as it was the grand finale and would take too long to do completely in class.

I think my aunt's cake won a prize that night. It didn't matter, you see mom made this cake out of her favorite recipe...and decorated it lovingly. She said it was the only wedding cake she would ever have and she loved it.

The next night, the kids gathered around while mom and dad cut their cake together.
It was a sweet moment.
Later my aunt went on to make wedding cakes as a sideline.
When I married, I looked through those same books and chose the flowers, colors and things I wanted on my cake and my aunt made it for me as a wedding present.
It was white with yellow daisies. I have always loved daisies.

Cake baking and decorating is not something I inherited from my mother. I can sew, I can do hand crafts, I can paint or draw, but I have a real difficult time making my cakes come out the same way her's did...and the one time I tried to decorate, well it was not the prettiest cake although it did recieve a lot of remarks...I would not say they were compliments...more tolerant "at least you tried" type of things.

When I remember moma, I remember her cakes. I remember her creativity, her laughter and her smile.