The Story Behind Cake: A Fairy Tale

After living in Cree Cabot’s perilous head while writing Kicking Sideways, I was a tad burned out by the time I submitted her tale to the publisher. And while most writers have a flurry of ideas in their heads just itching to be immortalized on paper, I’m a one idea, one story at a time sort of gal. 

So I fretted and wailed and decided that I had become an empty vessel. My brief foray into book publishing was over.

Then the ideas began to swirl, but three really played a role in Cake’s inception.

It started with an intense dream about going back in time as King Arthur’s scullery maid. A dark and stormy night (naturally) …Arthur and his knights had just returned from battle, beaten and worn.  Ignoring Arthur, Guinevere rushed to Lancelot’s side and as I swept ashes back into the bright orange fire, I was angered at her callous treatment of so grand a husband. I followed Arthur to his room and, um, tended to him. Months pass. Pregnant, Arthur smuggles me out of the castle to escape Guinevere’s wrath. I go through a hole and am back in the twenty-first century.

An idea! And one I really liked but although the beginnings of my semi-Arthurian saga seemed promising, the tale was just too dark for my frame of mind. Around the same time, however, I became more and more fascinated with the history of an old factory building adjacent to my neighborhood. Nowadays, the space is used as an office but the words “Apollo Cake” are clearly painted on the chimney.

As you can see, it’s an unremarkable building but like our Breena, I get a little chill every time I pass it on my way to Louie’s Ice Cream. I became intrigued with the idea of a story about Apollo, log cast from Mount Olympus, immortal but useless, a character reminiscent of Ronnie in “Moonstruck.” A modern day fairy tale.

By then, spurred by the Apollo Cake Factory and the god’s scrumptious treats, I was obsessed with cake.  I couldn’t stop thinking about the Mississippi Mud Cake at Worcester’s old El Morocco Restaurant, a favorite spot of Hollywood folk (my uncle swiped the dessert spoon Dustin Hoffman used). The restaurant is long gone now, as well as the recipe for that cake.

Now I’ve had many versions of Mississippi Mud Cake over the years, fudge cakes, tortes, to die for ganache, Death by Chocolate, cakes touted as the best chocolate cake in the world, but none compare to Joe Aboody’s Mississippi Mud.

Unlike other chocolate bombs, you could eat this cake and never feel sick.  So black that it looked like a lump of wet coffee grinds, it was a dense, moist pound cake with a crispy crust, smothered in pillows of unsweetened whipped cream.  Some liquor, a Persian spice perhaps, something unidentifiable in the recipe married to the chocolate melted in the diner’s very soul and transcended the idea of cake and became the veritable Turkish Delight of Narnia. 

Legend says that people offered great sums of money for the recipe but Joe always refused, and to this day the recipe remains etched in his brain, trapped in the secret of his grave.

In my mind, a slice of that cake will always define perfection. Well, that and Chris Cornell in the early Soundgarden days.

The word itself is perfect. C-A-K-E. Say it. Succinct, strong… cake…maybe even magical.

What if Apollo Cake were a magic place?

Why wouldn’t it be? Some of the old timers in my neighborhood call the area Witch Hill. Long before Somerville annexed the land, the glacial drumlin known as Ploughed Hill was part of Charlestown. An Ursuline convent was built here in 1824 but was burned down by an anti-Catholic mob in 1834. The rumor back then was that the nuns were really witches.

Eventually, the ruins and the hill they sat upon were razed and used as a landfill before my neighborhood was built. But the witches came first. There’s magic here. Maybe even a portal to Faerie.

The three ideas mixed into one story and as I wrote, I conjured my favorite childhood tales–fun, magical, whimsical stories with hints of danger, physical journeys that are really roads to self-knowledge and the heroism found in each of us.

For flavor, I borrowed Elven language from the wonderful Elven Kingdom of Arèthane site for my Blooded (a.k.a Faerie) race.

I also came across some old maps of Somerville and became most intrigued by place names–Ten Hills Farm, Milk Row, Glass House Court, Brickbottom, and many more. The land of Cake was built around these place names.

Finally, there’s Frederick. Frederick is a real teapot. Unlike Bree, however, I don’t talk to him (at least, I won’t admit it). Frederick needed to be a part of Cake. He claims he is Very Important (hey, I didn’t say he doesn’t talk to me!)

Then there are the trolls…I’ll leave them for you to discover.

And so Cake was baked. Please enjoy with a cup of hot tea on a rainy day.

Somerville historical information from Beyond the Neck: The Architecture and Development of Somerville, Massachusetts. For a first hand account of the convent fire, read The Burning of the Convent by Louise Goddard Whitney, one of the school’s students