A PIECE OF CAKE. Trisha Ashley

do for me: I like a quiet life.’

      ‘So does Wes. Really, Kate, you’d be amazed if you got to know him! He wants to move out of his town centre flat and buy a place in the country, now he’s signed a new contract. He’s not one for the nightlife like me and Harry at all.’

      ‘Oh yeah?’ I said disbelievingly. ‘And what about all those magazine pictures I’ve seen of him partying with lots of pretty girls draped all over him?’

      ‘He can’t help being tall, dark and handsome, can he? He probably doesn’t even know any of them, they just appear and mob him,’ she suggested.

      ‘Well, he’s not exactly fending them off, so far as I can see,’ I said sarcastically. ‘I don’t want to go out with a babe magnet and start worrying that I’m not thin enough, blonde enough or anything else enough to keep my boyfriend’s attention from straying.’

      ‘You’re hopeless! But you will still make my wedding cake for me, won’t you, Kate?’ she cajoled. ‘You said you would.’

      ‘Of course I will, as your wedding present. Do you want me to show you the photos of other cakes I’ve made, to give you a bit of inspiration, or have you already got an idea of what you want?’

      ‘My cousin in New York sent me a cutting from an American bridal magazine featuring some really spectacular cakes,’ she said, fishing in her roomy pink leather satchel handbag and coming up with a folded glossy page. ‘One of them is just perfect.’

      She spread it out on the work surface. There was one large central picture, which seemed to be hovering in a fuzzy pink mist, and several smaller ones circling it like satellites.

      ‘Oh god, it’s not that cake in the middle, is it?’ I asked with foreboding. ‘It looks like a Barbie castle on steroids.’

      Mind you, most of the other cakes looked overblown and ornate too and one of them was shaped like a church, complete with the happy couple standing in the porch.

      ‘Of course not!’ she said indignantly, and then tapped one of the smaller photos with a turquoise fingernail. ‘It’s this one.’

      I bent over and studied it closely for a moment, and then looked up accusingly at her. ‘Laura, it’s a football!’

      ‘But a flower-studded American football, while I’d want a round one, without any markings – just a simple big ball of white roses.’

      ‘Oh … more like an old-fashioned pomander?’ I said slowly, turning the idea over in my mind.

      ‘A pomander?’

      ‘An Elizabethan scented ball. They made them by sticking cloves all over an orange and then tying a ribbon round so they could loop it over their wrist.’

      ‘That sounds pretty,’ she said.

      ‘Yes … and I think something similar, but using rosebuds and on a large scale, would work well. I do hate making round cakes, because they’re so fiddly to ice, but I’ll do it for you.’

      ‘Thank you, Kate,’ she said gratefully. ‘I did want something different, a cake that everyone will remember.’

      ‘But you’ll still have to have at least one conventional tier of wedding cake too, or there won’t be enough to go round when it’s cut,’ I told her, then fetched a drawing pad and began to sketch.

      ‘Say you have a large, deep, circular base cake …’ I drew one, added a swirl of roses around it and then decorated the top with a pair of stilettos and a bulging handbag.

      ‘Something like that. Then poised above it will be the large ball of flowers, topped by the bride and groom figures.’ I added those in and then held it up for her to see properly.

      ‘Oh, it’s lovely – you’re so clever! But how will the top tier stay up, with just that one central column? If it’s fruit cake, then it’s going to be really heavy, isn’t it? Especially with all that icing.’

      ‘You can get a special stand that screws together and they’re very strong. The supporting rod goes right through the base cake and then the flower ball sits on a little disc – you won’t see it.’

      ‘It’ll be perfect,’ she sighed happily.

      ‘And what’s even more perfect is that at least this time I won’t have to watch a lot of morons pelting each other with my lovely cakes!’

      ‘I suppose they might pelt each other with the bread, instead?’ she suggested.

      ‘I don’t care if they pepper each other with gherkins, so long as it’s not my cakes,’ I said. ‘Now, tell me about this wonderful wedding dress that you and your mum have found and swear to me that you’re not going to make me wear taffeta with puffy sleeves!’

      *

      Making the traditional dark, rich fruit cake lower tier of Laura’s cake was straightforward enough and then I baked the trickier ball cake in a spherical mould to the same recipe.

      You can keep a proper wedding cake for months, if not years, and it will taste just as good, if not better. Couples often used to keep a tier of their wedding cake to bring out at the christening of their first child, which was rather a nice idea. I don’t think anyone does that now, though one or two of my customers still post bits of cake off in special boxes to friends and relatives who couldn’t be at the wedding. And apparently, if you put the piece of cake under your pillow, you will dream of your future husband! I love all these old stories and traditions.

      Anyway, I soon had both tiers baked, marzipanned and iced, and then decorated the lower part with moulded icing stiletto shoes and a handbag that had come open and was spilling its contents across the top of the cake. Then I added a long swirl of roses spiralling up the sides and that was the base layer done. But I was making sugar-paste rosebuds to cover the ball in every spare minute I had.

      Then came the day when I finally finished it and invited Laura round to look. I made her close her eyes and steered her into position right in front of it.

      ‘Okay – you can open your eyes now,’ I said.

      She blinked. ‘Wow! It looks even more wonderful than I ever imagined!’ she gasped. ‘Oh, look at all the things spilling out of the handbag – lipstick, pound coins … how did you make those?’

      ‘It’s gold leaf over the icing. And silver leaf for the handbag mirror,’ I explained.

      ‘Those shoes look wicked, too, with the Louboutin red soles!’

      ‘On the whole, it’s a very feminine, girly cake,’ I said, eying it critically. ‘I suppose the shape of the top layer is a sop to Harry’s job, but otherwise, the only masculine thing about it is the little figure of the groom next to the bride on top.’

      ‘Harry won’t mind. He wants me to have the wedding of my dreams, though if it was left to him, we’d have a quick ceremony in a register office. I don’t want a huge wedding, but of course he’s had to invite his teammates …’

      I groaned.

      ‘He couldn’t very well not invite them, but he’s going to warn them to behave themselves – they’ll have to, because we had a real search on to find somewhere for the reception at such short notice, so it’s in a posh country house hotel, not a marquee. If they start throwing food about, I don’t think the staff are going to be very pleased about it.’

      ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ I agreed. ‘And you don’t want to be landed with a huge bill for cleaning up the mess, either.’

      ‘That’s true. I’ve tried to keep the costs down, but even a small wedding seems to be super-expensive these days.’

      ‘Well at least your cake didn’t cost anything, because it’s my present to you both,’ I said. ‘I’m so glad you like it.’

      ‘I don’t