An unconventional cake

An unconventional cake for an unconventional wedding. Two dear friends were married this weekend - after 35 years together. They planned their wedding in five days, and it was more beautiful and loving and joyous than many weddings I've been to that have had over a year of planning and ten times the budget. Given the time constraints, I didn't have the opportunity to buy new cake pans in appropriate sizes to make a traditional three-tiered cake. I was worried about running out of cake, though, so I wanted to use up all the batter. What to do with the extra? I pulled out a stainless steel bowl and decided to make the cake a little, well, bohemian. Why not? The groom is a painter, the bride a librarian-intellectual. At the reception, she told the story of how they met, back in the early seventies. They met in the Port Authority bus station and spent a whole day exploring New York with one of the his friends. At the end of the day, they needed a place to crash, so they went to her cousin's house and all slept in sleeping bags on the floor. She said their first date was thirty hours long, and when they said goodbye, and he kissed her, she thought: "This has possibilities." Anyway, my point is that this couple seem to be prime candidates for a domed wedding cake.

And so it was. The cake was Cook's Illustrated's white cake, brushed with syrup, layered with raspberry jam, whipped white chocolate ganache and raspberries, and finished with classic vanilla buttercream. The flowers are made of marzipan touched in the center with royal icing. The butterflies are marzipan as well, held aloft from the cake on pieces of spaghetti. I had intended to make dragonflies and other things as well, but Amazon 's two day service is a big, fat lie. Apparently, that means "two days after we ship it, but we can ship it whenever we damn well please." So my insect-shaped cutters didn't make it on time. Fortunately, I did have one butterfly cutter I didn't even know I had - it had been in a bag of cutters I picked up for a dollar at a thrift store. So instead of a bride and groom, we had two fluttering butterflies. To me, that seemed just right.