Last week I had two cakes to complete and deliver. I was nervous because one of them was a three-tiered wedding cake which included a 30-minute drive. Every single bump and turn, every pebble matters. I get so worked up the days leading up to delivering a cake. It’s not pretty. I’m not pretty.

There was that one time I drove a wedding cake from Williamsburg, Brooklyn to Red Hook along the BQE. And that probably took a good 2 days off my life. For those unfamiliar with the BQE, it’s riddled with potholes—massive, horrible potholes. Partly because they can’t ever shut it down to fix it. It’s a major thoroughfare. So it’s in terrible shape. And there I am driving a three-tired wedding cake with handmade, gum paste flowers over its impossibly bumpy surface. I had both kids in the car and my husband was holding it–cradling it–like it was the Holy Grail. The cake got there in one piece, my nerves did not. There’s a reason we dowel each layer and then literally nail in a dowel, piercing the entire cake. But still. So stressful.

On Sunday, I went this one alone. I had to drive it from one small town in New Jersey to a place called Montclair. Now, Montclair is only about 7 miles from us, but when you factor in the reservation and a bunch of stoplights and winding roads, it takes about 25 minutes on a good day without traffic. It took me 35 minutes to get that cake from door to door and I panicked the entire time.

The guy in the blue corvette didn’t help matters. He was a real jerk. And the tiny blond woman in the ginormous Escalade, the one who threw her hands up at that railroad crossing, the railroad crossing I inched over, she was enraged. Like, red beams shot out of her pretty little eyes. She wanted to kill me, blow me up with her imaginary grenade launcher. She hated me and my stupid life. I was in her way.

I could go on. People were so very upset with me for doing the speed limit and slowing down at railroad crossings or around sharp curves. At one point, I considered making a sign for my next delivery, a sign that reads: “WEDDING CAKE ON BOARD” so that people might show me a little mercy. But then I pictured that angry blond woman, the one in the Escalade. Maybe she’s going through an ugly divorce after discovering her husband of 15 years has been having an affair. She’s already sold her wedding dress, the ring is next. SHE IS PISSED. And so, the next time I’m inching over those railroad tracks and she’s in a hurry to get to her next therapy session, I picture her reading my sign and flooring it.

Not everyone likes weddings.

So then I thought, “Maybe I’ll print a sign that reads: HUMAN ORGANS ON BOARD.” because everyone likes human organs. But that could get me arrested for being über creepy.

Instead, I have a plea: don’t drive like an asshole. Assume the person in front of you is doing what they’re doing for a reason. They’re not an idiot. You don’t have to hate them. They’re just trying to do the right thing, carefully and well. Plus, your rage? It’s making you ugly. You’re aging prematurely.

Yoga breaths.

But in the end, things went very well. The cake was a huge hit. The bride was happy. The groom was happy. But most importantly, the bride’s mother was happy.

Here is the wedding cake.

The bride wanted an all white, rustic cake. She didn’t want fondant and instead wanted buttercream. This cake is a vanilla cake, with Swiss meringue buttercream between each layer. There’s a thin layer of lemon curd as well. The outside is a crusted buttercream, which is very sweet, which is why I filled the cake with a Swiss meringue.

I also did a quick cake for a little, sweet girl named Mia who turned four and loves Frozen. Given the amount of time we had, we chose to use two plastic dolls.

I was told everyone was quite happy with not only the way it looked, but the taste as well. Often times a pretty cake means sacrificing flavor. And I hate that. So, I am always happy to hear that people like and eat the entire cake.

That’s all for now! Over and out.