Wedding Blog

I’ve always assumed some Asian bakehouse would create a lovely cake for my wedding…ie Anna’s Cake House in East Van, Michelle’s Bakery in Kerrisdale, or Goldilocks on Broadway. I’m sure they all make contemporary, Martha-worthy cakes, but everything on their websites looks like it’s from the 1980’s. And Bon Ton’s window display cakes in Kitsilano have a layer of dust on them like they truly are from the 1980’s.

Anna’s Cake House gave some helpful dimension information though:

“Have the tiers step up in constant increments (ie: 6 - 9 -12 where each tier widens by 3 inches or 8 - 11 - 14, NOT 6 - 8 -16 unless that is the look you are trying to achieve)”

Enter: Cupcakes (and my BM’s new kicks). Although I prefer “muffins” made from Betty Crocker cake mix topped with real whipped cream, and buttercream is terribly-sickly-sweet, Cupcakes does cupcakes and cakes.

I think they mentioned their wedding cakes start at $8 per slice….which, even if it has fondant I’m sure is the plainest cake with a few strips of grosgrain ribbon. So 8 x 100 = $800. 

But, they also have “regular” buttercream cakes which are actually quite cute… and affordable (see pricing, below)!!

Okay, so following Anna’s dimensions rule - if i did 7, 11, 13″ cakes and tiered them myself, it would run $185 and feed about 112 people with 2″ slices (although their wedding cake looks to break the even increment rule with a four incher on top). And I realize tiering these cakes could be disastrous, so even buying three vintage milk glass cake stands and having three 11″ cakes would still make Martha proud.

Look how pretty their cakes can be in this price range - they had a mini fridge in the store that had a few of these very same cakes and they really were true to these prices. Now I imagine there are equally talented cake makers out there that don’t have the overhead of a store located on both Denman and Broadway.

My MOH is an excellent chef in her spare time, and perhaps has become even more accomplished since recently becoming vegan (anyone that can improvise with limited and unconventional ingredients and pull off anything tasty has my respect). I can vouch that her vegan baking could pass for the real, butter-laden/cream-laden thing, and she intends to make her own wedding cake. I thought it was too much to expect her to a) make me a cake on top of her MOH duties and to b) deal with dozens of eggs and cups and cups of dairy. 

I’m undecided about the cake thing, but we’re considering making some really perfect fondant for a styrofoam cake that has one “real” layer on top to ceremoniously cut into, and having some inexpensive sheet cake to serve the guests.