What’s prettier than a cake decorated with flowers? A rhetorical question of course, but the Taj Mahal, Jeff Aquilon as photographed by Bruce Weber in the late ’70s and your own newborn baby are equally acceptable answers.
But India is a long way off, it’s been 30 years since Jeff hung up his Speedos as captain of Pepperdine’s water polo team and making a baby takes way more time than cranking out a batch of sugared flowers, as we do in this recipe for candied violets.
It’s also a good idea to keep a supply of professionally-made flowers on hand for that certain je ne sais quoi called for in recipes like these buttery Sablé cookies, a Liberace favorite. These all-sugar blossoms are practically indestructible and keep forever when stored in a Tupperware container.
This nice but rather earnest buttercream-frosted cake got a good gussying up with the application of tiny wild strawberries, the tippy-tippy top leaves of new mint shoots, a tuft or two of micro-clover and nasturtium leaves no bigger than nickels. A stalk of salvia added little bells the color of lapis lazuli.
The (relatively) bigger strawberries crowning the cake came from a nearby East Hampton farm. That fabulous Stem Gem strawberry huller I rave about ensured each berry was trimmed to perfection.
Did I mention this dainty gâteau was Steven Russell’s birthday cake? Well it was a very happy birthday indeed.
