Many years ago, one of my colleagues was awarded an endowed chair. This is a big deal for professor. The ordinary course of possible promotions for a professor in the tenure-track is that you start as an "assistant professor", eventually get tenure and promoted to "associate professor", and then, if you keep doing really good work, you get promoted to "full professor". But if you're lucky – if a wealthy donor has given money for a chairship and the people ahead of you retire or leave the college so that the chairship opens up again – you might get this extra decoration: being named to an endowed chair. Unlike being a department chair, it usually doesn't come with a lot of extra work. Instead, it comes with a bit of research money, and with a long and fancy title, including the name of the donor.
When my colleague was awarded this chairship, the department had a party for him, and our department coordinator bought a fancy cake for him from a nearby bakery in the shape of a chair.
A few years back, after my colleague retired, I was awarded the chairship (yay!). I told my good friend in the math department that I wanted to have a chair cake, like my predecessor had. The bakery, however, was no longer making specially shaped cakes, however, so my friend decided to try her own hand at it. I have to say, I was super impressed with her version!
Then I retired, and the friend that made the chair cake for me was awarded the chairship, and so I knew she needed a chair cake, too.
On a lark, I called the original bakery, just to see if they'd be willing to attempt to re-create this cake. The person at the other end was incredulous, telling me that it would take a month of preparation and would cost at least $500. He repeated multiple times that they were professionals, and that the general public really had no idea how much work goes into making such a cake. He was on such a rant about this that it was a little hard to get off the telephone.
At any rate, I made the cake the day before the party in the course of a few hours, and it didn't cost $500. I used my normal go-to "Brazilian chocolate coffee cake" recipe, doubling the batch. I poured the batter into a large rectangular sheet pan. When the cake was done, I cut it into three pieces: the first was slightly larger than half of the sheet pan, and then from the smaller of those two pieces I cut out a footstool, leaving the remainder in a U shape. The U-shaped became the armrests and back of the chair. Then, since I make marzipan in December, I made a batch of marzipan pillows.
(It might not be the most elegant cake out there, but it was nonetheless a great hit at the party. And I'm so glad to be able to celebrate my friend this way!)
