Mariah Carey Had the Best Wedding Cake

Just in case anyone’s wondering, I was most definitely not on the guest list at Mariah’s surprise wedding to Nick Cannon two weeks ago. But I do know that her wedding cake was awesome because my friend Margaret Braun made it, and she makes the world's coolest, most delicious wedding cakes. And they’re perfect even when she doesn’t know they’re for a wedding—Carey’s peeps told Margaret it was for a video shoot in the Bahamas (Margaret now claims she was  suspicious; most shoots don't specifically ask for every single bit of the cake to be edible). Ms. Braun usually travels with the cakes she makes (she went to Ireland with Marilyn Manson’s cake a few years ago) but didn’t this time. This seems to have been okay: Several blogs reported that Carey was so protective of the cake, she kept it on the seat next to her on her private jet and wouldn't let anyone touch it. I like Mariah even more now that I know she has such good taste in cakes (and takes such good care of them).

For anyone who wants to make Carey’s wedding cake at home, here are the details: four tiers of chocolate blackout cake layers covered in bittersweet chocolate–toffee ganache and decorated with white sugar bows and butterflies and lots of blingy gold leaf. For more details on any of these components, check out Margaret’s excellent book Cakewalk (full disclosure: I helped copyedit the book). Incidentally, that's not the last you'll hear about her cakes: she recently made a big fat cake for the upcoming Kate Hudson/Anne Hathaway movie Bride Wars.