Last weekend was spent not averting what I was afraid would be a total disaster, on both personal and culinary levels. By which I really mean there was no disaster, but not through any action on my part.

It was Deb and Joel’s wedding, and three weeks prior, they were still finalizing their self-catered menu. I was as usual swamped with work and couldn’t help on such short notice, as was Tamara, so we advised they make lots of lists, and crossed our fingers.

Also, magnanimous Tamara and I volunteered to do the cake, which we decided would be a croquembouche. I thought this would go nicely with the ice-cave theme Deb and Joel were creating (look in the March 6 NY Times Vows column for pics), and envisioned a freeform ‘bouche shaped like a mountain and doused in unorthodox white icing or hard sauce to resemble snow, and studded with plastic woodland animals and lugers and ice-skaters, or some such nonsense. Tamara voted for the traditional route, with plain ol’ caramel and spun sugar, and as our patience and schedules wore thin, I began to see the error of my thinking, and the rightness of doing things as you have successfully done them before, and not fucking around.

Ironically, Tamara and I, the skeptics, were the only people who were stressed out and frenzied and behind schedule the day of the wedding. As usual, we had to make last-minute batches of stuff (I under-guessed the pastry cream), and there was another hitch that slowed us down: Tamara was violently ill Saturday night, the day before final assembly. She, the martyr of pastry, had to occasionally pause to gather her strength as she dipped her hands dangerously near the molten sugar, and, honestly, no sooner did she place the final puff at the tob of the pyramid than she ran to the bathroom to barf.

(Sorry for the brutal realism–I know no one likes to hear the word “barf” anywhere near stories of food prep, but I don’t think what she had was contagious, and besides, the vicious caramel would’ve killed anything it got close to. Also, if you only knew how often cooks come to work sick….)

Anyway, we finally got that baby whipped out around 4:30pm, T minus 1:30 till curtain and 3.5 hours behind schedule. Karl, the freakin’ champ, wrapped it up in a little cage of wire mesh, and we hopped in a cab while Tamara retreated to bed, cursing weakly.

And oh, what an anticlimax when we arrived Chez Deb and Joel–because as usual, Peter was utterly calm and everything was under control, and Deb had made millions of very effective lists and delegated responsibility in a sensible way. Serves me right for naysaying.

But enough build-up. Here’s the croque-critter itself:

(Note the glittery threads of less-than-delicate spun sugar…)

Peter’s head and tongue help give you an idea of scale. Karl had rigged up a pin spot with a Mag-lite and masking tape to add some extra gleam:

And here it is in action. Courtney, to the left, was utterly obsessed with the thing, drawn like a moth to the flame. She’s trying to use a knife here, but of course the only way to do it is with your hands.

Actually, I read the traditional way to do it is to hack the croquembouche open with a sword, but Joel “Safety First” Murphy nixed that idea. I guess because the whole giant ice cave was already a huge fire hazard, and he didn’t want to risk conflagration and beheading on the same night. Not in front of a NY Times reporter, at least.

After all that, you’d think I would’ve taken a picture of the happy couple, but I think I was so wiped from the croque construction that I couldn’t keep my hands steady enough.

You’d also think I’d have a picture of Tamara and my ravaged hands, seared by hot caramel. But weirdly, neither of us burned ourselves once. Strangely disappointing. Really, thank God Tamara got sick, otherwise there’d be no story at all.