A Little Cakeiversary

You know that tradition of keeping the top tier of your wedding cake in the freezer to eat again on your first anniversary? Well, my husband and I took that to a whole new level. Last year, we brought it with us on what we called our ‘foodie-moon’ to celebrate 12 months after our big day. The cake traveled from the wedding venue in NJ, to our house in CT, to the mini fridge of hotel #1 in Stowe, Vermont, and then to another mini fridge at a hotel in Burlington, VT. On our one-year, we popped open a bottle of champagne (you may have noticed I use any occasion to celebrate with bubbly), filled our toasting glasses from the reception, and cut into this fondant wrapped frozen time capsule.

I’m not going to lie, it still tasted delicious. We were actually quite impressed with how decadent our red velvet, chocolate ganache creation remained. While it would make sense for the point of my story to be how the cake lasted through traveling, and for the rest of this tale to read, “We took a bite for tradition’s sake, threw it out, the end,” It didn’t quite go that way.

Instead, we continued to dig into the sweet layers, wrapped it up again, put it back in mini fridge #2, and brought it home once again to our freezer in CT. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my husband said if we weren’t going to eat the whole thing, there was no way he would stand for the disrespect of throwing this masterpiece in the trash. Instead, he more-than-alluded to throwing a proper burial ceremony for this hunk of goodness in the backyard, and may or may not have said something about having a moment of silence.

I was truly touched knowing a large part of this was due to sentimental value, but also smart enough to know that about 90% of it was simply just about the cake.

Finally, after a year and a half of marriage, and a very sparse amount of freezer space, he agreed to one last bite (okay, it did actually still taste pretty good…). Then, we gave it a Hefty bag sendoff, gangsta style.

I now take you to present day, when just a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated our second anniversary. Yes, it’s been two whole blissful years since we said, “I do”, became husband and wife, and more importantly, had our first encounter with this artistically constructed, multi-layered dessert heaven we called our wedding cake. The thought of it still gives us butterflies.

So because marriage is all about being in tune to your partner, I cooked up a master plan to bring us back to those first feelings when our cake was still in its prime; fresh out of the oven with sweet chocolate ganache and a rich red coloring. I called A Little Cake in Park Ridge, NJ, and Leo the baker agreed to recreate our top tier to surprise my husband.

Another time, I will tell you how I got my hubby to drive with me to the bakery an hour away, but let’s fast forward to us actually being there…

We arrived for the big moment. I felt almost as nervous as my hubby must have been when he proposed to me, although in my case I had dessert instead of a ring. I gave the secret nod, and out came our top tier. The look on my husband’s face was priceless. It was better than any other gift I could’ve gotten him. He told me so himself.

We took home our special treasure, topped off our tasting flutes, and to the tune of James Taylor’s, “How Sweet it is to Be Loved By You,” cut into our symbolic confection together. This time we weren’t vacationing for the weekend or surrounded by family and friends. Instead, we were in our kitchen, enjoying life’s simple pleasures. We nixed the plates, grabbed two forks and dug in.

I turned to my husband and said, “We’ve made so many wonderful memories during our past two years of marriage, and know we have so many more to look forward to. But tonight my love, we just eat cake.”

And we did.