Long day

I think I generally mean it when I say it's nice to be busy with smachot, and it is, but boy was this day long. And here I am typing away instead of sleeping - I will definitely regret that in the morning!! Anyway, this day started out with some fun laundry (just what you all wanted to know about, right?) and a trip to the Ramster, i.e. Rami Levy. Despite having been there once already this week, we still managed to pull off another big shopping. Thank goodness David was there to push the wagon which has four (?!) rotating wheels, as opposed to two stationary and two swiveling as in the US. Then it was on to cake decorating and delivering. I had tutoring and getting ready for the wedding. Finally, we left for the wedding of a close friend of David's family. It was really a beautiful wedding (yay - two in a row!) and everyone's simcha was really palpable. The chattan and kallah looked so happy at the chuppah, which BTW was very cool. The aisle was elevated like a catwalk, and the chuppah was simple but had fabric covered columns that were lit up with colored lights. A little Project Runway for a Yerushalayim wedding. The kallah's rabbi spoke beautifully under the chuppah, which is usually not something I am in to, but it was very touching - about sasson and simcha, the difference between them, and what the couple were experiencing as opposed to their families and guests. Mazal tov to everyone!

Anyway, here's what I spent oh so many hours on. This was a sefer torah cake for a bar mitzvah from Reut (a town next to Modiin). First I sandwiched the two layers of chocolate cake with buttercream. Then I rolled the cocoa roll to form the scrolls and covered the whole thing in buttercream. Not too exciting, right? Kind of looks like the bottom of a chair!

I also molded chocolate tefillin - a pair and a spare, as they sometimes do not come out perfect, and besides, they are much more affordable than the real thing.Then I started on the decoration - the mother of the bar mitzvah wanted medium blue for all the decoration, so who am I to argue. I started with the tefillin off center

but then moved them to the middle - I just preferred it that way.Then I added the straps in chocolate icing. Chocolate fondant would have been nice also, but the weather was so hot and even somewhat humid - not the norm for here - that I was afraid of wilting.Finally some chocolate rolled wafers and a couple of chocolate swirls and we were good to go.

Finally, I had to pack it for transport. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find cake boxes in this country that fit a cake larger than 10" round. Even when I was in the States, the stores were all sold out of the size that works for this size cake, though I did find a few for 9x13" cakes. So David, the king of improvisation (he really is, who would think) took a supermarket fruit crate and made the perfect carrying case.Finally, I cranked up the a/c in the car, tossed it in and drove to the hall. All in all, it was a nice cake, though not my favorite. I would go with slightly more subtle design and coloration, but this was based on a cake I did for Ariella's gan, and the client really wanted something similar. Also, I had a bunch of problems, I believe weather related, that I will not even recount here, but it made the whole thing a challenge. I hope the baalei simcha are happy with it - I delivered directly to the hall, and I was a little nervous about the fact that their air conditioning was not on yet. But the manager promised to turn it on shortly, and I took photos to document the safe arrival. But I can't dwell on it, because there is always more to do. Now on to baking for Shabbat and for Ariella's mesibat siyum. Wish me luck!

Dvora