Life is short so Kalea baked a cake

August 28, 2014 at 12:01a.m.

By KALEA HALL

khall@vindy.com

CANFIELD

I am not a baker.

I can cut through the meaning of words, craft sentences and cultivate my own masterpiece of a story.

But cutting cake to craft it into a beautifully shaped anything is not my strong suit.

Knowing this, I still decided to bake a cake to enter into the novelty cake contest for the 168th Canfield Fair.

Why?

Because life is short, baking is fun and believing in yourself to take on different tasks is important for your character.

Also, my boss had an extreme belief in my baking abilities.

Every holiday and on random occasions I would bake cakes and cookies for the newsroom, and they became a hit.

Before I knew it I was talking novelty cakes. I thought, should I make a rooster? How about an entire replica of the Canfield Fairgrounds or something related to The Vindicator?

In the end I decided on a newspaper vending box. Easy, right?

Not a chance.

I did my research before diving head first into novelty cake baking. I talked with bakers and learned some tips and practiced making different and fun cakes like a bunny cake for Easter.

I had a plan. Bake 10 cakes, layer frosting, build it up and then cover it with fondant and design. I was ready, so I thought.

Before I knew it the deadline to bake this cake had arrived. For some reason I decided to take a vacation the week before the fair, so when I arrived back Monday I had to bake and construct this cake before the deadline to turn it in Tuesday morning.

I bought the essentials and got to work. I mixed up four cakes first because that was all that fit into the oven.

While they baked I got to work on this homemade fondant. The Internet provided me instructions, and it appeared to be pretty easy. I didn’t second-guess it despite how many times I tried Internet recipes that utterly failed.

So here is what I did: dumped an entire bag of mini marshmallows, approximately 1 pound, into a bowl and then popped it in the microwave. Once melted I stirred and stirred and added powdered sugar. The Internet told me the mixture would soon become like fondant — easy to shape and not sticky like melted marshmallows are.

Wrong.

I kept stirring and stirring and adding more sugar. I used a whole bag of powdered sugar, which was 2 pounds. I tried to see if the fondant would let me work with it by kneading it like bread, but I just ended up looking like the newest member of Marvel superheroes — like the Hulk with orange fondant, marshmallow hands.

I have a tendency to get a little too excited when baking. I want the finished product as soon as possible. For whatever reason I took the cakes out and let them cool for about an hour and thought they would be ready to turn over and get out of the pan.

Wrong again.

I no longer had four perfect cakes ready to be stacked to make the box. Each one crumbled in my hands, on my table and everywhere else. My cloud of hope suddenly crumbled with it, and then the tears came.

“There’s no crying in baking,” I told myself.

But what was I to do now?

I tried to piece it back together with the now-cement fondant and frosting and I failed.

Four cake mixes, four cups of water, 12 eggs and about five cups of vegetable oil later and my dream was a mushy glob.

Partially because of emotions and also because I was exhausted and overwhelmed with the task at hand, I decided a world cake was the best way to go.

The crumbly cake that once was square soon became a sort of half-rounded world.

This cake was not going to be eaten, so I used paper towels to shape it and topped it with a lot of frosting. Four packages to be exact — not to mention the three inside of it and the fondant.

I started to get creative and added fish crackers to the ocean parts and made the outline of the U.S. with marshmallows. I plopped some sour patch kids at the Canfield Fair in the Ohio portion of the marshmallow America and elsewhere, and then I was done.

Almost instantly my feelings of failure were erased. Even though I thought I lost my cake battle, I had somehow come back to give it one last punch and, BAM! I had a cake.

It wasn’t pretty, but it was done.

I brought it to Building 24 at the fairgrounds and saw my competition. A beautifully done elephant, a dog and then a scarecrow holding a cake. I had no chance at first place.

But that is OK because I still got honorable mention and a sticker for my first entry in the fair.

My suggestion is: Don’t be afraid to enter anything into the fair. Take a chance to show off your talents, get your hands dirty and maybe a cry a little in the process.

In the end you will come away with a gratifying experience, an appreciation for other talented people and a silly story to tell your friends and family.

I may not be the perfect baker, but I am a chance taker.