Magical candles and cakes
Most decorated celebration cakes are made with an intention to wish someone well and, along side other food and drinks, will be the centre creation of a party atmosphere. If the cake is for a birthday it will usually have candles for the person to blow out while making a wish. It is said that if the person blows the candles out in one go their wish will come true. This is the first ritual using candle magic that most of us do in our life and we still like to do it as adults even though many think that the wish will not come true. This is usually because the wrong colour candles are used combined with a non-believer making a half-hearted wish for something impossible.
As a magical ritual care and consideration in the use of colour and symbolism of the cake is of the utmost importance to gain what we need to improve our life. If we understand magic and its potency then wishes certainly can come true. Firstly any wish must be realistic and thought through carefully before your request is made. The three-fold karmic law will apply and you might just get what you wish for in a way that you don’t like. An example would be someone requesting more money and they have an accident and receive compensation a few weeks later. It would be better and more realistic to have asked for more over-time or a chance of a better career instead. This will be less painful because you are putting in some of the work towards your needs.
I recently made a cake for a couple retiring after 40 years running a pub. They had very mixed feelings of excitement at spending time together after all that time of unsociable hours without holidays and sadness at selling their home and career to a stranger. I chose a book for the cake shape to symbolically show a new chapter in their life together with butterflies to show freedom to discover a new path. The colours were yellow for learning a new way and green for calm and tranquillity to enable enjoyment of a new chapter. There are also some flowers with a colour made from red for strength to accept a new life with a small amount of yellow to learn from the experience. The message was simply ‘happy retirement’ but the intention of the whole creation was my magical wish for them to relax and enjoy whatever they do in their new life. While decorating I thought of them and saw them smiling and happy in my mind, while still concentrating on what I was doing. It is the intention of our thoughts that help to make our wishes come true. I am a believer of magic and my thoughts are enough to bring happiness to all those who ate the cake with the couple.
Another magical belief that I was taught by my grandmother is to always share any cake that is offered, even if it is only one bite. She said that to refuse was to show that you did not think well of the person that the cake was made for because you are really refusing to share in the wish for their good fortune. Especially true if it is a wedding cake.
The corner, butterfly and letters are made using the run-out icing technique - pipe outlines first and when dry pour in thinned yellow icing and let it run out to the sides. Use a cocktail stick to push icing into the corners.
While it was still wet I layed it across the cake so it would dry into the same curves as the cake. They are thin and fragile so I found it best to do these on wax or baking paper instead of greaseproof. If you only have greaseproof then smear first with a very thin layer of butter. Before pouring thinned icing tip some in a shallow dish and smooth across with the back of a spoon to remove air bubbles. If bubbles are in this mix it will dry with a strange bubble affect that looks ugly when they burst and will be much thinner than it should be. If this happens you can go over it again with a new mixture.
© Lynda Archard 2002
