Cake (Non-)Baking Scientifically

Is anything done traditionally anymore?  I suppose we need to remember that all traditions come from somewhere and therefore are subject to change.  Anyway, I got a call from my best friend (and maid of honor at my wedding) asking me for an unusual favor.  "I have to move my wedding.  My baker has bailed on me.  Feel free to say no, but would you be willing to make my wedding cake?"

"Ummmm," I said.  "Let me think about that."  I love being artistic.  I love baking.  Neither of these qualities make me a professional.  The last time I had instruction in cake decorating, I was 11, and my idea of elegant was lopsided cursive writing and really BIG rose leaves. 

"I'm not actually asking you to bake a cake," she hurriedly assured me.  "I've been talking with my friends, and they gave me this great idea.  Make it out of rice krispie treats." 

Okay. Now that I can probably handle.  So I said yes and got to work.  Sure, her wedding is still a full month away.  When has that ever stopped me from preparing waaaayyyy in advance?  I figure that two days before a wedding is a really bad time to discover that I'm in over my head.  So I've done a little research, and now I'm proceeding scientifically.

The bride (love you, Des) has a loose idea of what she wants: two three-layer cakes, one peanut butter with white chocolate, one marshmallow drizzled with milk (or maybe dark) chocolate.  It's up to me to find the best recipes, combinations, and methods.  I figure, in addition to taste, moldability, cutability, servability, and presentation are the chief qualities to measure. 

Step 1: So I dug up a recipe.  (I started with peanut butter rice krispie treats because Seth had never had them!  After all those years of CRC potlucks, he had never had this recipe!  I was a floored.) Of this recipe I asked three questions: is it tasty, is it moldable, and does it cut easily?  To answer the question of tasty, I tasted it.  So far, so good.  Then to mold it, I used three different pans with three different kinds linings.  Conclusion:  Greased cling wrap is the best lining, and with it, the recipe molds very well.  Does it cut well?  On the day of making it, if I use a Miracle Blade.  The day after, it gets a little stiff.  Maybe I'll add marshmallows. 

Step Two:  Testing toppings.  The bride knows what flavor of toppings she wants, but she leaves the details completely in my hands.  As far as I can tell, the variables are candy coating and frosting.  The categories are again taste, moldability, cutability, and presentation.

Melted white chocolate chips provide by far the most delineated texture and harden the quickest (Those roses are an accidental result of the camera angle.  They don't look half that good in real life.), but the coating flakes when the cake is cut, and it's hard to manipulate.  That's not especially presentable. It's also very rich, like sugar-buzz rich.  That kind if kills it in my book.  White chocolate and peanut butter, by the way, are amazing together.  I wonder why I haven't stumbled on them before. 

The texture of milk chocolate candy coating isn't so clean and it takes longer to harden than traditional chips, but it also doesn't flake when I cut the cake.  We've all had chocolate peanut butter cups, so I knew what to expect in terms of flavor, but for some reason, this flavor combination doesn't thrill me. 

The third option is the frosting that normally goes on top of peanut butter rice krispie treats: a simple combination of butter, powdered sugar, melted chocolate, and water.  As you can see, this option doesn't hold its shape quite as well, but it has the advantage that it can be put through a frosting tube, while the others, I think, would clog the nozzle.  Plus frosting is maleable, cleanly cutable, and variable in texture and flavor, and it melts in my mouth without going to my head.   Seth says it doesn't work well with rice krispies.  He says we need more opinions. 

So we "baked" up a bunch of regular rice krispie treats, frosted them half with candy coating and half with frosting, and took them around to the relatives yesterday.  The concensus is that either is good, but the candy coating would probably be better in terms of thickness and richness.  I have been overruled, but it will probably be easier that way.  The white chocolate was by far the favorite (as well as being the most bridal), so we might do both cakes in white. 

You'd think we'd be sick of rice krispies by now, but we're still going strong.  The frosting is getting to be a little much though.