As I’ve gotten closer, and closer to the present, it has become more of a challenge to figure out how to approach these cupcakes. This is more true for the last two presidents. In the preface to the book The Faiths of the Postwar Presidents, David Holmes says, “No president’s story is complete until his death– and even then, reevaluations frequently occur.”
Here, then, I’ll take a bit of a different approach to this cupcake. George W. Bush may very well be the reason that Head of State Cakes exists. You see, in the days leading up to the 2000 presidential election, I had a recurring dream about George W. Bush. In this dream, he stood in the middle of my childhood bed wearing dress socks, dress shoes, boxer shorts, a dress shirt and a tie. He stood there twirling a lasso. That is it. I had that dream time and time again until the election happened. Then it never happened again.
That’s one heck of a dream. And I spent some time trying to wrap my mind around it. That’s what led to me taking a poem about this dream to the writing group I had been attending. Later, showed the group a poem about President Nixon. At this point, someone asked me if I was planning to write a poem about each president. I quickly replied that I didn’t know enough about each of them to write a poem about each one.
But I realized that I could.
Here, an endeavor to read at least one book about each President of the United States began. When I finished, I had a hole in my heart that I chose to fill with, yes, cupcakes.
So you see, this project is directly linked to George W. Bush. Without him, and without that dream, none of this would be happening.
The cake:
Because the ever important George W. Bush dream was set in my childhood bedroom, I decided to make a cupcake that might evoke childhood. Also, because George W. Bush is reputed to have enjoyed a lunch of peanut butter and honey sandwich regularly in the White House, peanut butter and honey would be the main flavors in this cupcake.
The cake itself is honey flavored with a peanut butter swirl. It’s topped with a vanilla buttercream and drizzled with honey. It’s garnished with a peanut butter filled pretzel.
The cupcake is called the Decision Point because that’s very close to the name of the book that he wrote which discusses some of the major decisions that he’s made in his life.
