This Takes the Cake!

We spent the past weekend in Easton getting a bunch of wedding "to-dos" out of the way, one of which was the cake taste testing!   We had made the appointment bright and early for 8am, since we had our marriage prep class at 10am.  So early, but we had to sneak this in!

We got to the bakery right on time and made our way to the door, and it was locked!  There were no lights on and then we looked at the store hours, and they didn't open till 9!  We were a bit confused as to why they would make an appointment with us for 8 when they weren't even open then?  Did they have a mix up?  We went back to the car and I tried to call them to see if they were there but just didn't unlock the door....and nothing, just the message with the store hours.  We decided that we would just grab some breakfast and come back when they opened at 9 to get it out of the way.  So of course as we are in the middle of breakfast we get a call from the bakery, "hi, do you know you had an appointment this morning at 8?".  "Yes and we were both there at 8 and the door was locked", I replied in a semi-annoyed voice.  According to her, someone, a "she" had said "she" opened the door and "she" turned on the lights.  This "she" didn't know what she was talking about bc we for sure checked the door a few times before driving away.  Luckily they were fine with us coming back at 9 to get all this shoving our faces with sugar out of the way.  We get there and again are questioned, "are you sure the door wasn't opened?  I just cant believe it.  and the lights really weren't on?".   Like we would lie about it or something.....some people!  So this began our taste testing.

I really was not about to get crazy with the cake and have different layers of different flavors and pay extra for this filling and extra for that.   I am more concerned about the prettiness of the cake.  Plus, I rarely see people even eat the cake at weddings and we will have other dessert treats to tickle our guests sweet treat fancy.  Conveniently for us, our cake is included with our price per person at the reception site, but the catch, its all basic stuff, which we were fine with.  We could choose from chocolate, vanilla, marble or half choco/half vanilla.  We could also choose whatever frosting we wanted but would have to pay extra for fondant (but they can make normal frosting look just as smooth and pretty so we were ok without the fondant).  We decided to go with half and half, so that the vanillas in our bunch and the chocos in our bunch would both be happy.  The frosting will be a french butter cream, which is a little less sweet and a little more silky then the normal butter cream you usually taste on birthday cakes.  

Decor for the cake will be simple.  It will be a 4 layer cake, every other layer will have a dot design (Jimmy's choice) and a swirl type design (my choice).  So the cake has a little bit of what we both picked.  It will also have shimmer to the whole cake and around each round layer we will have a ribbon (which now I have something new on my list to hunt down).  We are back and forth over a purple ribbon or a gold ribbon.  We also aren't quite sure on the topper?  Flowers? Initial? Icing flowers?  Overall I think it will look really pretty!  All the cakes they had there were gorgeous!

I tried to find some cakes with things similar to what we want.  Gold ribbon?

Or plum ribbion? 

Now some tips I found about choosing your wedding cake:

• Cost-If your cake is not included in your reception cost like mine, think about the cost.  Wedding cakes are very pricey and simple things you can do can keep the cost down.  Choose a flavor that is lower in price, choose and icing that is lower in price.  It is amazing what bakeries can do to make an inexpensive cake look like you paid a bunch!
• Design-There are so many different designs and shapes to cakes (square, round, hexagon, etc).  Choose a style that reflects what you like.  As far as color goes, usually its best to keep the cake within the colors of the wedding so it ties in.  Make sure you are not throwing random colors on your cake just because you like them and then it doesn't go with anything else at the wedding!
• Display-If there is anything you would like to add to the cake table, just make sure it does not take away from the cake.  Candles are a nice example of something to enhance the beauty of the cake.  Also remember to have a cake knife and server for when its time to feed your new hubby his first piece of married dessert.

Some other options if you aren't a fan of cakes:

• Cupcakes-they are already portioned out and can be displayed on a display that makes them look like the shape of a cake if you did have a cake!  

• Croquembouche -a display of mini cakes (cream puffs), much like the cupcakes, displayed in a tiered disgn to represent the shape of a cake but not like a normal traditional cake.  It means profiterole tower---its french.

• Cake Buffet - a bunch of small cakes of something for everyone, red velvet, tiramisu, brownies, etc.
• Pie Buffet- instead of the cake buffet you can have a buffet of all different pie options.
• Varied Dessert Buffet- a bunch of different cookies, brownies, candies etc.  This can also double as a favor.  Get cute little container and your guests can take home their dessert with them.

picture from Martha Stewart cakes.