Our dear sweet pretty pit bull Stella is a girl after my heart. She loves her treats.  And everyone else’s treats!  We have to monitor her as she tends to get in the “bulking” stage which isn’t good for her knees.  I’m serious!  She actually had one knee replacement years ago and we were told by the vet that she might have to have another.  But if we kept her in shape and her weight down than we had a better chance of avoiding it.  Stella is ten years old now (that is 70 in doggie years folks) and so far so good.  However, she has fallen off the wagon every so often and the repercussions haven’t just been her gaining a few L-Bs (thats pounds for those of you on the metric system or stone system).

One such time that she got into some sweets trouble was when I had baked a wedding cake for a friend of a friend.  It was a simple three tiered cake.  The wedding couple were having an all inclusive dinner for their wedding at a hotel in County Wicklow and only wanted the cake for the photo opps.  Bespoke wedding cakes in Ireland are seriously out of control price wise.  So I offered to make a cake which would be delicious, and though not super fancy, would look nice while not breaking the bank.  The result was a lovely sponge with butter cream frosting and some burgundy colored ribbon accents and rose petals to match the decor of the wedding.

Back then I was working full time as the manager of a gourmet fresh food store in Dublin and so I had to bake the cake through the night.  Besides, I always like my cakes to be eaten when they are super fresh.  My Hubby was supposed to deliver the cake to the wedding for me since he was also going to be doing some filming for them.  I left for work the morning of and didn’t expect to hear from Hubby until later that night after the wedding festivities. Then mid morning I received a phone call at the shop that literally stopped my heart.  I heard my husband’s voice and it sounded as though he had been crying.  He was so upset he couldn’t speak.  I kept asking him what was wrong.  Luckily there weren’t any customers in the shop at that moment as I was the only staff there.  Finally he uttered sounds in fragments, “Sttttt-eeee-lll-aaaaaaa, got….” and my first though was Stella got hit by a car or something.  I said, “Dear God, what happened to Stella is she okay?” and then he pulled himself together and said, “Yes she is, but your cake is not. Honey I am so sorry.”

At this point he was able to relay the story that while he was carrying his camera gear out to the car he left the wedding cake in its box on our living room coffee table.  It is a very cool coffee table as it is a door that was converted to a table.  But it is quite low.  In fact so low that it is just the right size for four legged creatures to come sampling cakes!  Yep, our pretty pit Stella decided she would have her elevensies just minus the cuppa!  My Hubby was gutted and I could tell he was panicked as to how I would react.  I calmly told him to bring the cake and my decorating tools to me at the shop before he went down to the wedding.  I thought I might asses the damage myself and see if I could resurrect it.

When he arrived he looked as white as a ghost.  I stayed calm and while Hubby was profusely apologizing  and I starting working on it.  But I realized quite fast that there wasn’t much I could do.  I would have needed to bake another layer for the very top and re-ice almost the whole thing.  I couldn’t leave the shop and so I just told him to take the cake as is and explain the situation to them.   Luckily since the were mainly using it for photos they could turn it to hide the dog eaten part.  The dinner at the hotel included the dessert so they were okay on that front.  Finally I told him to apologize and offer that I would bake another cake for them to make amends.  And of course I emphasized to refuse to take any money at all for the dog eaten cake!

This wasn’t the first time Stella showed an interest in my cooking or baking.  In fact, as my snapchat followers know, she plays a pivotal part in all my snapchat stories.  She is always nearby hoping for a morsel from mommy.  But she had never, and I mean never taken something unless it was given to her.  She is good keeping a distance (even if at close range) and waiting for the magic words.

I realize she is foodie focused but being a sneaky sweets eater was a first!  But once she got the taste for it, I have to say that it wasn’t the last!  Case in point, the brownies below!  So now I have to make sure that she is never ever alone with goodies in a geographical range!

So what happened with the wedding cake you are wondering?  Well, since the couple happened to be best friends with the people that have taken care of Stella since she first arrived in Ireland from the States, they were fine.  In fact, they thought it was actually funny. They were able to take fantastic photos and no one seeing the pictures would have even guessed that it was a half eaten cake on the other side!  And the kicker of it all is, they actually ate the cake!  They cut off the Stella slobber part, then sliced and served the rest!  They even told the whole wedding reception the story, which got a good laugh, and seeing as they were all dog lovers, didn’t bat an eye while they were eating it.  In fact, I actually got a few more baking jobs out of it as the guests at the wedding said it was the best cake they had eaten! OMG!!!

Well thanks be to God, nothing else has left my kitchen with her special sauce on it!  But we love to talk about that story.  Though it was stressful at the time we can laugh now.  The only lingering aspect is Hubby is still on a self imposed moratorium from watching, caring for, monitoring or delivering any of my baked goods!

Four legged Licks of Love!

YDP