HAVING YOUR CAKE AND EATING IT

It is said you can’t, but I think I am heading for a birthday cake that I can eat. Of course, if it was made of glass then it’s tricky but guess doable. Just grind down the glass and mix it with say cereal. Sounds a technique that a prisoner would use so maybe I shouldn’t try that. My glass cakes always have a slice out of them to make the shape more interesting. Haven’t made one for a few years and suppose the trend for glass cakes has diminished. Last one I made had a teddy on holding a candle. It was for the first birthday of a baby. Can’t remember if it was for a boy or girl but whatever the colour of glass icing would be a clue to gender.

My glass connections to cakes are really focused on toppings as I have made various glass objects to be position, pride of place on top of celebratory cakes. I even made two glass leaves for my wedding (should that be our wedding?) cake. The idea is that leaves were a theme of our wedding, so a couple of glass leaves seemed natural. The bonus is that the glass will last forever whereas the cake is usually gobbled up in a short time.

Talking of wedding cakes reminds that I have made a glass wedding cake. Small version of course which was a lot trickier than I had imagined. Round cakes are easy since my glass tubing originates as long round tubes. Square cakes mean I have to heat and shape round glass to square as accurate as possible and in any case make it look squarish with sides of equal length. Wedding cakes with tiers are a pain since each tier would be a different size yet they have to fit on each other. Then you have to fuse supports on which are fused both on the top of the tier below and then on the base of the tier above. Lining all the edges of the glass supports is painful in the stress that it causes. No one appreciates it so I have now design glass wedding cakes with just one support which looks weird but is simple to make. I don’t make any glass wedding cakes now!

What I would really like is to make a glass submarine which is inserted in the middle of a cake that resembles the ocean. Then when cutting the cake there is resistance as the knife hits the glass and the audience hold their breath as no one knows what is happening. The cake is cut again and again there is resistance. Suddenly out pops the glass submarine bounces on the floor and hits all smashing in exactly the same number of pieces as it is the age of the person cutting the cake. In this situation being younger is an advantage but image being a hundred years old and being confronted with one hundred small pieces of glass hurtling at you with great speed and potential impact. Doubt if you would be celebrating your one hundredth and one birthday!