People Do Give You Funny Looks

I am no stranger to the strange looks cashiers give you at the grocery store. After all, I was the girl at Fairway with a case of heavy cream and nothing else. Come to think of it, I also got strange looks when I bought 6 pounds of duck fat and nothing else.

As of today, my crisper drawers are filled with 12 pounds of cream cheese and 9 pounds of butter and the walk of shame to checkout was significant. People do wonder what the hell you're planning when they see that in your hand cart.

After much trial and error and, given the cake-free zone in our house, disposing of failcake in the trash, the recipe for the wedding cakes is set. The test-freezing has been done. Now it's just a question of ingredient amassing.

What has been interesting is discovering just how much I already had in the house. It does, in fact, take a while to go through a 50 pound bag of sugar. I was able to make all of the test cakes without buying more cake flour. I have quart sized mason jars of vanilla extract just hanging about.

So in case you've ever wondered what it takes to make cake for over 100 people, have at it (approximately):

8 pounds of flour
9 pounds of sugar
8 pounds of butter
30 eggs
2 pounds of cocoa powder
1 gallon of oil
1 gallon of buttermilk
12 pounds of cream cheese
6 pounds of confectioner's sugar

and assorted smaller amounts of the minor ingredients.

When I look at it all together, it doesn't seem like that much, which is a boon to anyone who might be having a minor panic attack about making cake for over 100 people in the next three weeks (and then making chocolates). But then I realized that making one entire cake every day for a week pretty much dispenses with cake making and the chocolates can be done in a day.

But I'm glad I only have to do it once.