Cake, Continued

There’s a French restaurant near where DJ and I live. We’ve been there several times to celebrate a birthday or a holiday, and I always order dessert. I haven’t taken a picture, always too busy scarfing down the delicious pomegranate mousse on a thin brownie crust. You’ll just have to trust me – their desserts, like everything else on the menu, come beautifully presented. The pomegranate mousse arrived with a dainty crown of spun caramelized sugar, filled with fruit.

Like this, but larger and more delicate. Wouldn’t it be great as a cake topper, filled with flowers?

I thought it was a neat trick, but surely any pastry shop could make one.  Not so! The cakery demurred, having never done anything like it before. A series of searches online turned up… me, looking for a spun sugar crown. I did find lots of helpful tips for making spun sugar (curliques, fluff, nests). But everything I read tells me that the caramelized sugar is fragile and needs to be prepared no more than a day or so in advance. Between cookie baking and flower arranging I don’t think I’ll have time to play with hot sugar.

So I called the restaurant, hat in hand, playing the bride card. The receptionist chuckled when I said I’d happily buy a dessert to obtain the crown. I’ll have Chef Michael call you back, she said. He did – totally on board with this pushy bride – to ask about size and color.   

It’s a tiny little detail to be so thrilling. But it’s just the sort of thing that makes wedding planning fun.