Wedding cake is a Braaksma family tradition. Growing up, I loved when Mom and Dad attended a wedding because it meant waking up to wedding cake on my pillow.
My parents always flew solo to weddings. My brothers and I stayed home and, fortunately, stayed out of mischief. I always thought the reason they didn't take us is that family wedding celebrations involved a keg of beer. Wild guess. Not sure.
At that time, we lived in Badger, Wis., and family weddings were in Randolph or other Wisconsin nearby hot spot.
On those celebrated occasions, Mom would bring home a slice of wedding cake for each of us children. My brothers and I would be in bed, asleep, by the time they returned home. When I woke up, voilá, wedding cake on my pillow, wrapped in a fancy napkin with silver edging and the names of the bride and groom in silver with little silver wedding bells!
The cake always seemed familiar - layers of white cake, frosted with sugary, white frosting, and decorated with little pearl and silver, filigree balls. Most likely, because of waking up to wedding cake, my favorite cake to this day is white cake with yummy vanilla flavoring.
It was my lucky day when I discovered the source of that mysterious wedding cake. It was revealed to me during a summer stay at the Meekma's, Sam and Ann, my uncle and aunt. I was an honored summer guest at their dairy farm in Randolph.
On the fateful day, Aunt Ann was rushing around, shooing me and my cousins out the door and into the car for something important. Time was at its essence as it always is on the farm because there is so much to do with the cows, chickens and pigs, but this time was different. I sensed it immediately. We were not on farm time but on clock time, hurrying to meet a deadline.
I was trailing Aunt Ann around the house like a puppy, caught up in the excitement of the adventure, when all of a sudden as we were nearing the door she stopped in her tracks, turned, and exclaimed, "My gosh. I almost forgot!"
She rushed to the basement over to a huge freezer against the wall. It was a chest freezer, hinged at the back, that opened like a giant flip-top, frozen treasure chest. Aunt Ann chucked open the lid, dove both arms down into the freezer, and popped back up holding a tiered wedding cake that looked like a pyramid of frosted heaven.
I was in awe! I had never seen anything like it. Instantly, Ann became my super-woman. She had magically baked and decorated a wedding cake for some lucky bride and tucked it away in the freezer like hidden gold, on the eve of the wedding day. It was as if she were the cake fairy. I never saw her bake it or decorate it. It simply magically appeared in her freezer.
When I looked at that tower of glistening white fluff with little pearls and silver balls, I knew I had found treasure and the source of those luscious slices of wedding cake that appeared on my pillow when my parents returned from a wedding in Randolph. Aunt Ann was the Braaksma Martha Stewart of wedding cakes.
Some day, I am going to bake and decorate a cake as close to the ones I remember, wrap a slice in a fancy paper napkin, and slowly eat it with a glass of milk. Sweet memories.
