As far as cake is concerned, have fun with it, just remember: plan on cutting it during the first hour of your party so that everyone gets a taste a slice!
But I think the real reason we bake far-fetched cakes is because we hear in our children's birthday-cake requests, whether spoken or not, this: "You can do it.
Of the 24 cupcakes I tasted, the actual cake far too often was no more than a dry, unappealing vehicle for the intense sweetness of the icing.
Oven mitts (inset; $19 each) and cotton napkins (far right on cake stands; $35 for a set of four) share space with tea sets, bedding and aprons.
Displays of pain au levain and wild yeast sourdoughs, outsized buns and slices of far Breton prune cake, provide plenty of eye candy in this otherwise plain space.
You, little lady, have come far enough, so cake some foundation on that sourpuss face of yours and toddle off to your boxercise class: feminism is so over.
You can walk the entire length of dazzling Ocean Drive, from its tip to the Delano Hotel, in three-quarters of an hour, including time to punch out a couple of roller-bladers and point at the Versace mansion where Gianni was shot (possibly by a town planner: his rococo palace is far too wedding cake for South Beach's art deco cool).
I am about as far from a cake decorator as anyone you've ever met — in fact you can count on the fingers of no hands the times I've used the small tips on a pastry tube — but I know art when I see it, and Karen Tack and Alan Richardson's "Hello, Cupcake!" (Houghton Mifflin, out now; www.hellocupcakebook.com) qualifies.
His world and work have evolved so far beyond layer cakes that it's no wonder he is quoted in the catalog accompanying the Whitney exhibit as being weary of the label "the pie painter".
High altitude cookies need to be adjusted far less than cakes, which require a large reduction in baking powder and sugar and the addition of water.
