Crazy for Cake...Literally

We've got lots to talk about here, so let's just cut right to the point: I love cake.  I can't understand when brides say that they're skipping cake at the wedding because they just don't like it.  I mean I get the point, if you don't like it, then go ahead with pies or rice krispies or chocolate fountains, because those are delicious too.  But I just cannot wrap my head around the dislike of cake.

Jess speaks the truth, as always./HelloShweet Instagram

And I have no willpower to boot, which means that sometimes when reading Wedding Bee cake posts I get cravings really bad.  A long time ago, I was reading someone's delicious cake post (I think it was Mrs. Panda's), on what was a really cruddy day in my world for some forgotten reason.  I needed cake like woah.  When I got off of work, I headed over to the nearest grocery store and bought a bakery mini cake.  I live about an hour from my work, so no way I was waiting to get home to eat it.  But I had no utensils, so I ate it with my fingers...in my parked car...in the pouring rain.  I'm not ridiculous at all, obviously.

Kind of like this, but with more frosting./Gif from Glee Wiki

So I'm just apologizing upfront if you're like me and hearing about tasting flavors and fillings turns you into a sweet-tooth driven monster.  It's just how these things go.

I knew that I would not take the search for the right baker lightly.  Sure, I know that guests raving about your wedding cake for the following weeks like Marshall in the first season of HIMYM (bet you didn't notice him in the background chowing down on the cake from the Buttercup Bakery) isn't really the most important outcome about the wedding, but it's got to be in like the top three, right?

Many of the venues I looked at had the cake "included."  You got a credit at one of three popular bakeries when you booked the venue, which was convenient, but also meant that you were one in a billion couples they were churning out cakes for on that weekend.  Board of Trade doesn't do this, but it made me hesitant to book any of those bakeries on my own.  And based on photos and reviews I found, the decorations were not my style and the bakeries were difficult to work with if you wanted a flavor other than wedding almond.  Now don't get me wrong, I love wedding almond.  It's delightful and might be my favorite.  But I wanted the option to include some different flavors that were more fun, and I wanted a bakery that wouldn't give me trouble about that.

On a pop culture kick today./Gif from Giphy.com

So I expanded our search to places outside of the normal recommendations - I nearly went with one smaller bakery that was good and cheap, but I couldn't get another place out of my mind.  I had to try Mrs. Archer's chosen bakery, The Cocoa Bean.   I wasn't able to get an appointment the week I wanted to due to the holidays, but I swung by and bought a few slices on my own.  They.were.amazing.  So when we got to the official tasting the following week, I was pretty much sold already.  The owner/chef Anthony and I talked for over an hour about my cake design, flavor options, pricing, and groom's cake.  He was all about hearing what I wanted to do, but offering his professional opinion to let me know what would work best.  I can't ask for better than that!

My at-home personal tasting (with wedding, strawberry shortcake, red velvet, and chocolate-chocolate slices) and the before and after of the official tasting.  So excited both times.

I love that his tiers have three layers, which creates a more pleasing better frosting to cake ratio.  For flavors, I will do two tiers of wedding almond with vanilla buttercream and raspberry marmalade filling and two other tiers of...something else.  Chocolate cake is pretty low on my personal favorites list, but it would round out the flavor offerings at the wedding.  Anthony has a praline filling option that sounds awesome, but I wasn't able to try it.  Or I'm liking the idea of strawberry cake with a chocolate ganache filling and strawberry marmalade.  Thoughts? 

For inspiration, I knew that I wanted a different design or texture on each of the four tiers, and I was drawn to all of these elements: 

Lace, pearls, swirls, and rosettes./Sources: Pearles Specialty Cakes,  Cotton & Crumbs, Via Martha Stewart Weddings, Sisters Baking Co.

We came up with an idea for incorporating each design on a tier and decided that a color palette of ivory, blush, and some gold would be prettiest here, since our wedding colors of plum and teal were a little too bold for something that will end up on our guests teeth.  He'll also be able to do all the designs I want in buttercream, not fondant, so that's cheaper and tastier!  

Scribbles they may be, but they're the result of lots of brainstorming!

His pricing definitely falls somewhere in the middle: cheaper than the high end bakeries in the city, but a little pricier than some of those cake factory options I mentioned earlier.  The quality is definitely more high end and overall he's still really reasonable and we're right within the budget.  And he offers a discounted price on groom's cakes when you order the bridal cake with him - and those are the ones that can get crazy and expensive because of the elaborate detail!  

LSU Football helmet groom's cake!/Photo from Cocoa Bean Gallery

Sphinx and I had put off thinking about the groom's cake design until we could understand how much it would cost.  With Anthony's discounted pricing (which he said he might be changing up, so if you're local, I can't promise exactly what he's doing), we've got a lot more options open to us!  He loves the Saints and LSU, but those are pretty much the norm for groom's cakes around here.  We want to think of something different and cool, maybe incorporating ancient Greece or Rome - as a nod to his interests and how we met.  

We know for certain that the groom's cake will be red velvet with cream cheese, since that is Sphinx's favorite.  He actually doesn't have much of sweet tooth, but about a year ago he started to get obsessed with red velvet cupcakes and would bring them home all of the time. That was right at the start of wedding planning when I had no time for cooking healthy or working out.  Thanks for the five pounds, pal.  Actually, MOH/Sis Curls requested to be my cake tasting companion as soon as we got engaged since she knew Sphinx wasn't into it.  She was able to tag along for some, but wasn't in town when I went to the Cocoa Bean.  Sounds like we'll have to take another visit!

Whew, that was a long post, but I wanted to get this all written at once so I'm not craving cake for a few days in a row!  

What's your favorite cake flavor/filling?  Anybody else want to meet up for some sweets, because now I need some?