Black Magic Wedding Cake, One More Time

I only have two children (as far as I know). And both asked me to make them Black Magic Wedding Cakes. I couldn’t have been happier if they had proclaimed “I love you, Mom” on the Fenway Park Jumbotron.

Last year, it was my daughter Claire and Gordy’s three-tiered cake with buttercream frosting.

This year, Raegandrew (Raegan and my son Andrew) opted for all chocolate. No tiers, no “3D frosting.” Just regular birthday-style cocoa frosting.

Six cake recipes yielded exactly three 9” cakes for guests and one 6” three-layer cake for the bride and groom to smear all over each other’s faces. Claire truly topped it all with her poetic sculpture of intertwined trees with gleaming, gem-like leaves.

Wanting to push the 3D barrier and echo the wedding’s nature theme, I added some chocolate leaves. I found an easy recipe (see below) for something called modeling chocolate, a cross between Tootsie Rolls and fondant, but more delicious. Rolled thin, it made a smooth, pliable sheet, perfect for a mini cookie cutter.

Olalliberry Pies, too

Raegan and her mom made a bubbling pot of their favorite pie filling—luscious olalliberry—which I had the honor of encasing in orange juice pastry and decorating with pastry leaves. The remarkable olalliberry has the complex flavor of mixed berries because it is a hybrid of raspberries and two types of blackberries. Grown primarily in California, it is as unknown and regrettably as absent on the East Coast as In-N-Out Burger.

So now that the kids are married, I hope to be working on Black Magic Anniversary Cakes next.

Modeling Chocolate for Chocolate Leaves

• 7 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
• ¼ cup light corn syrup

1. Heat the chocolate in the microwave until barely melted. Stir until smooth and slightly cooled.
2. Stir in the corn syrup. The chocolate will stiffen almost immediately. Stir until completely combined. Refrigerate about a half hour to harden a bit.
3. Roll thin between wax paper and cut out shapes. If too hard, nuke in the microwave for a few seconds to soften and get back the gloss.
4. Put any leftover chocolate into a plastic bag and store in the refrigerator. When ready to cut, nuke for a few seconds, again to soften and get glossy.
5. Refrigerate leftover chocolate. It will keep for months.

Cake and pie photographs by Mason Foster Photography.