On January 2nd of this year, I fell down the stairs.
I’m talking 10 very hard, wooden stairs, and I felt every single one. I had been looking at my phone (ahem) as my three-year old daughter sat on the inside of the staircase, where the rail was. I decided I would bypass her instead of patiently waiting. And I was immediately punished for this literal mis-step as my foot sailed out from underneath me and I crashed down, screaming every bruise into being.
Despite plowing my head into the drywall, creating a dent in the wall and a couple of minor gashes on my temples, I wasn’t seriously injured. I came pretty close to breaking my tailbone, if the deep purple bruise just an inch or two away from that location was any indicator. I probably should have gotten a concussion, statistically speaking, but if I did, it was so minor I didn’t notice any symptoms at all, and neither did anyone who spoke with me. My entire left side was badly bruised and hurt for several weeks after, including a bone bruise by my ankle that is still actually slightly sensitive a month and a half later. But, all in all, I was very lucky. It could have been worse. It should have been worse. It wasn’t, and I’m grateful.
One thing I don’t often talk about is my love of tarot. Though I’m quiet about it, it’s a pervasive love. I was looking at an Instagram post at the time of my tumble and it just so happened to be a post about The Fool: card 0 in the tarot’s Major Arcana. An idea slowly started to form around taking a leap of faith. And, knowing I had an audition coming up that I would have to bake something for, my mind turned to my medium of choice: baked goods.
I planned until the audition date was announced, with details such as the various fillings and flavours, the edible decorations, and how to transform a cake into a mystical staircase leading to another realm. Then, when the date was announced, I worked toward the design and did a test bake.
Last year, the audition fell on my birthday, so this year, I decided to bake myself something I would want to eat for my own cake, thinking the date would be similar. Though the audition came a week and a half before my birthday this year, I did nonetheless move forward with the flavours I’d have liked.
The result was a blood orange spice cake, with the base being from a recipe I had sampled a couple of weeks prior. I had waffled over the base cake flavour—I almost went for a coffee-infused cake, for example. The fillings included a juicy and flavourful blood orange—almost a jam or glaze— and chanterelle saffron infused chantilly cream. The chanterelles had been handpicked by me in the late summer and dehydrated. The frosting was a salted molasses buttercream, which has evolved into my signature favourite over time. I would cut this cake into a staircase, decorate the outside with a darker brown of the same buttercream to look like tree bark, and then decorate the base with handmade marzipan decorations. Finally, the topper would be a handpainted cookie tarot card—which, in planning stages, almost became a cutout, and almost became a handpie as well.
A week before, I tested the bake and summoned friends via my private social media platforms to come pick up a slice and give me some feedback. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, interlaced with helpful constructive criticism as well. I used the feedback to tweak the recipe a touch in the week that led up to the audition and started crafting the marzipan decorations. On Thursday, I baked the cookies—a simple blood orange zest sugar cookie with a hint of clove—and iced them with a simple white royal icing.
Friday morning, I got up early and started my day by handpainting the tarot cookie with food colouring. In the hours that followed, as my kids got up for the day, I then infused the cream, I baked the cake, and I whipped up the blood orange filling and the molasses frosting.
Carefully, I stored all of these various parts of the cake, and then we hit the road, driving to Halifax—me, my kids, and my mom. I stored the cake and the other parts of it in the fridge. Then, the next morning before going to the audition, I assembled and decorated the cake in its entirety on the little table in our hotel room.
In the end, I think the cake turned out better than I expected. My goal had been to beat my audition bake from last year (the Heartbeet Rose Rolls) and I think I passed with flying colours.
You’ll have to forgive the photos—I meant to take one in the lightbox at the audition and somehow managed not to, and the rest are all from the hotel room! The surroundings aren’t glamorous, nor reflective of the whimsy this cake embodies, but they certainly reflect the reality of, well, decorating a cake in a hotel room. As well, I used a nicer cookie card—this one was one of the testers. I didn’t get a proper photo of the cake with the most polished card of the three I painted, unfortunately.
At the end of it all, this cake is: a blood orange spice cake with chanterelle saffron infused chantilly cream and blood orange glaze fillings, frosted with salted molasses buttercream. On top sits a lightly spiced blood orange sugar cookie tarot card with royal icing and a painted caricature of myself in the pose of The Fool with accompanying text. Finally, around the outside of the cake: moss, chanterelles, sunflowers, and a little strawberry basket, crafted by hand of homemade marzipan. The strawberry basket was in honour of my kids, who both love strawberries—in fact, my youngest, while watching me make the chanterelles, specifically requested a marzipan strawberry, so I went ahead and made a whole basket.
I had so much fun planning and designing this cake. I have a few more things to bake as it is still birthday season in my family, with my youngest daughter’s and my father’s birthdays both in March—not to mention my birthday next week, which I will be baking something for. You can probably expect to hear about it. But, after the hectic holidays, it was so fun to get back to designing a project from top to bottom, and I’m already full of ideas for my next bakes as well.
The audition went well, by the way! Last year, I auditioned, and I applied online the year before as well. If I’m honest, I didn’t make that known at all because I was worried about what others thought. But, I have since realized that I would love all the support I can get, and that it doesn’t matter what others think about my skills.
I may not make it to the next stage of the audition process and will likely not know if I did until late next week. Regardless, it was a lot of fun and I got to meet some really cool new people. Plus, it’s an honour for the producers of my favourite baking show (and some past contestants) to taste my baking. While I wait to see if I receive any form of communication, I’ll dream up my next bakes—and try to figure out how I’m going to top this one for my 2025 audition!