BASTILLE DAY : Let Them Eat Cake--All 50 Feet of It

There are certain phrases one doesn’t expect to hear from the mouths of pastry chefs at work: “Hand me that masking tape to stabilize the cake,” for example. When building a 50-foot high layer cake in honor of the French Revolution bicentennial, however, masking tape can be essential.

Other required ingredients: 3,600 eggs, 200 egg whites, 1,430 pounds of genoise (sponge cake) mix, 638 pounds of raspberry filling, 72 bottles of Cointreau liqueur, one ton of sugar, 355 pounds of frosting. You also need a good supply of wood, Styrofoam, stainless steel tubing, electrical wire and the services of a professional welder.

Wednesday morning, on the Hollywood Park race-track infield, preparation for the 50-foot high cake, the focal point of this Sunday’s French Food and Wine Festival, were well under way. Scattered early bird handicappers in the grandstands occasionally glanced up from their Racing Forms to observe the activity, but mostly they ignored the gathering of the 15 or so white-clad pastry chefs who climbed about the wood arches of the not-yet-completed cake frame, applying bits of frosting and mugging for newspaper photographers.

Looking at a nearby bench getting drenched by a sprinkler, the cake’s designer, Citrus chef Michel Richard, shook his head and said, “Oh, I hope they don’t turn the sprinklers on my cake.”

Hanging 25 feet in the air in the tub of a hydraulic lift was Don Slater, the Hollywood Park chef who did much of the grunt work in construction of the cake base. Trained at New York’s Culinary Institute of America, he makes monster-size ice carvings, cheese-and-wine displays and cakes. But, he said, “This cake is the biggest thing I’ve done, though.”

“It’s 50 feet and 35 inches ,” said Michel Grobon, Hollywood Park’s executive chef. “We measured all the pieces yesterday.” Grobon organized the cake-baking and prepared the way for the 35 restaurants and wineries expected to set up food booths for Sunday’s festival.

When finished, after an all-night decorating session Saturday, the cake will look like two down-sized models of Paris’ Arc de Triomphe stacked atop one antoher--plus a steel-tube version of the Eiffel Tower lit by white Christmas tree lights atop the arcs. Sixty-watt light bulbs will power eight giant candles, and 1,500 pounds of dry ice will prevent frosting meltdown.

“I think it’s the largest cake you can build without a foundation system,” said David Davis, the architect who helped plot the cake’s structure. Originally, the cake was to be 100 feet tall, but that would have required steel reinforcement, an elaborate foundation . . . and a building permit.

All of which brings to mind the question: Why build such a tall cake?

Citrus chef Richard, not satisfied with running one of the most respected restaurants in town, decided he wanted to create an attention-getting event that would spark a sense of community among restaurateurs in Los Angeles: “It’s so tough here,” he says, “so many cliques and groups. In France, everyone in the business sticks together.”

“It was really important for the cake to have a lot of the fun and flair of L.A.,” said Davis, “while at he same time giving it a traditional nature. You know, Michel is a real classicist.”

As the photo shoot ended, Richard teased some of the women chefs and joked with some of the men, but those who know him well realized that his mood was subdued. The Monday night murder of his closest friend, Andre Coffyn (who was heavily involved in the plans of the cake), put an absurd twist on the project that kept his mind on the frivolous instead of the very serious. Shortly after the photographers left, tears came to his eyes. “Oh Andre,” he said, “you should be here now.”