Cake Baker - Make Me A Cake!
April 30th, 2007 @ 11:58 am by Mrs. Kiwi
Mr. Kiwi and I are not ashamed to admit the biggest reason we chose our venue: the cake was included from my favorite bakery. Well, actually they gave us two choices, our favorite Hansen’s Cakes, and Torrance Bakery cakes. Up to this past weekend we were set for our bakery, we just had to go taste the cakes and fillings. Then my FSIL said that she’d heard amazing things about the Torrance Bakery. Greaat.
We went to a wedding a few weeks ago that had a Hansen’s cake. Maybe the choices weren’t to my taste, because I was fairly disappointed in the wedding cake. Sure, it all tasted good, but it wasn’t anything I’d talk about later, ya know? Now I’m feeling torn. I know for a fact that Hansen’s makes tasty cakes- I’ve had them before. They have many flavors of cake, but not that many fillings that sounded good to me (and I’m all about the fillings). Another downside- the cake designs are a little old-fashioned. I’m sure we could do a special cake, but it may not be included in our package, and we’re not looking to spend more than the package allows.
Torrance Bakery has beautiful cakes, and a ton of fillings. In an ironic twist, they have less flavors of cake than Hansen’s! It’s like they’re trying to make me choose- tasty cake options or tasty filling options! Either place we go, we’ll have a four tier cake iced in buttercream frosting, that much I know (at least I know something!).
So it seems Hansen’s specializes in these types of cakes:
This one is oddly titled “Contemporary”,
And this “Cascading Spring Floral”:
So, as you can see, they’re full of flowers and gobs of icing. I’ve always imagined our cake to be very simple, with a splash of color.
Now, our other option…
Torrance Bakery was voted “Retail Bakery of the Year” in 2006 by Modern Baking Magazine, and it was also voted South Bay’s favorite bakery since 1991! I am slowly getting seduced by the Torrance Bakery site- I mean, look at these cakes! Just what I wanted!
Fondant, which we don’t want- but looks awesome.
I love the look of this, perhaps with less flowers.
I actually really like this idea- at first I thought it was too busy, but with gold scroll on an ivory buttercream, it may be what I’m looking for. Is it just me, or does this cake look like it’s leaning?
And now, my current fave, with less roses- or different colored flowers.
Okay, I guess I’m going to be swayed to Torrance Bakery. Their cakes are beautiful and have a ton of fillings!! YUM. Why are you choosing your bakery?
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12 Responses to “Cake Baker - Make Me A Cake!”
my brother’s venue included a cake from hansens. the flavors were great and celebs seem to love hansens, but you’re right…. the designs are really outdated. and they created a different design than we requested (i believe we paid more for it too). 
Our bakery, the Black Forest Bakery, which I believe was mentioned once by Mrs Orange, was chosen for us by our venue. Which is fine with us, they’re local to us and I know they’re a good bakery. They’re making us a tower of cupcakes, and I’m right now in the middle of arranging a groom’s cake from them. I figure they’re already delivering one thing, why go somewhere else for the groom’s cake? And I don’t want to spend for one of those jaw-dropping groom’s cakes, just a chocolate cake with a NY Giants theme. Then, of course, my mom is making a big tiered Martha Stewart cheesecake, but that’s another story…
We’ve been to two bakeries. The cakes and icings weren’t necessarily better at either one, but given that one of the bakeries couldn’t do something I wanted them to and they were STILL more expensive, we ruled them out. I’m still looking for another bakery, and would really like to find someone who does them on the side because I can’t come to terms with spending that much on CAKE!
There is a baker in town that my mom has used before and we were originally going to go with her, but sadly enough she was already booked full for our day. So, we searched around for other good bakers and we ended up finding the original lady’s TEACHER! How perfect! When I tasted her cake, I knew I had to have her; it was the MOISTEST (is that a word?) cake I have ever had in my life. I liked her cake so much that we’re going to have four different flavors between our small 3-tier cake and two larger sheet cakes (much more cost effective to feed 350 people).
Okay, I just want to add: Damnit Leslie- I hadn’t even THOUGHT of them getting booked up. FRICK! I think I’ll call today.
alas, i have no choice in our cake..our reception hall is baking it on premises. *excitement* (sarcasm) 
i would love to have a local bakery bake us a delicious treat! all the pics look so great miss kiwi!!
i’m also swayed by the Torrence Bakery pics!
Our cake-choosing went in three waves. First, we were being Mr. and Miss Post-Modern All-Online Long-Distance Wedding Planners and doing everything online. We had a bakery we asserted again and again that we were going to use, based entirely on their website. Then, 11 months prior to the wedding, we drove for an hour to a tasting and the baker never showed. Hello?!
The second wave was a semi-manic approach, where we collected baker information from all of our other vendors, the local paper, and word of mouth. This resulted in more driving, hours on the phone (which I continue to hate) and STILL no tasting. Hello?!
The third wave was the “fine, I’m sick of your mother nagging us” wave. For years, every family event has been accompanied by a cake from a woman who runs an inn about 10 miles away. They’re very moist, very good, and always beautiful (she does this “beach” effect with brown sugar that’s really cute), but she doesn’t do fondant, which we had wanted (Her: it tastes like paste. Me: not if you do it properly), and she has this really snotty line on her website about how her cakes are not pure white because she uses real butter. Based on the no-fondant thing and the not-white thing, we’d crossed her off the list months ago.
But come December, and no sign of a viable alternative, we “settled” on her. The cons: not fondant, and not pure white. But the pros: $125 less than anyone we talked to, free delivery, the knowledge that it will taste wonderful, and the fallback that if it’s awful, the FMIL can’t say “I told you you should’ve used…”
We had our bakery recommended to us by nearly every other vendor we talked to (from rentals to the venue to the caterer). When we went tasting, I thought I’d died and gone to cake heaven ~ it’s this whole other level of nirvana 
We are actually getting one tier of our cake as Chocolate cake with peanut butter and chocolate peanut butter mouse filling. Weird sounding but it is absolutely divine!
The Torrence Bakery pics are beautiful! If my wedding was in SoCal, I’d be all over that!
I chose my cake lady based off of tons of good recommendations from other brides and my vendors. She’s a bit of a flake, which freaks me out somewhat, but I have confidence it will be delicious and gorgeous!
I chose my bakery, Torrance Bakery, because they are my FAVORITE bakery when it comes to cakes! I’ve had their cakes at at least 50 different occasions, weddings, birthdays, reunions, etc - and I’ve never been let down!
One of my friends had a red velvet birthday cake that came from Torrance Bakery and it is by far my FAVORITE red velvet I’ve had in my life. Better than Sprinkles Cupcakes. It’s just so dang good!
Damn, now I’m thinking about that delish cake!
Mrs. Kiwi, Los Angeles
Age and Occupation in 06: 27, Bookkeeper
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, P.E. Teach/Coach @ private schools in LA
Engagement Date: March 31, 2006
Wedding Date: November 3, 2007
Venue: Radisson Hotel
About Me: I'm a bookkeeper who failed high school algebra. I'm currently living in Los Angeles, literally a street over from where I grew up with Mr. Kiwi, my honey of three years. We have a jumbo mini-dachshund (seriously, he's huuuuge), and we're planning an autumn themed wedding on a shoestring, paid for by ourselves. The wedding date is my late grandma's birthday, I needed her there somehow, and that seemed like the best way for us. I can't believe I'm a Bee! I couldn't be more proud!
I chose my bakery http://www.scialobakery.com because the bakery is an old Italian bakery in Federal Hill in Providence, RI. Cal has some family from there (as he’s Italian) and the bakery has a great reputation for tasting good. They were even featured on the Food Network.
Once we tasted the white cake (touch of almond flavor) with vanilla buttercream.. we knew we weren’t looking any further. Plus they were really honest with what they could and couldn’t do looks-wise. I’m not getting the mad hatter cake I wanted but I am getting a fun cake with big custom made sugar daisies on it. At least I know they are working within their means.