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Mrs. Stiletto, Chicago Age and Occupation: 26, Non-Profit/Fundraising Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Engineer and Photographer Engagement Date: March 2, 2008 Wedding Date: September 2009 Venue: The 19th Century Club About Me: My fiance and I love living in the city of Chicago with our cats Basil and Linus, and vow to never move to the suburbs if we can possibly avoid it! We’ve poured ourselves into planning a wedding that reflects our personal style - modern and high contrast with a vintage twist. Blogging keeps me creative, baking keeps me happy, and grande nonfat no foam sugar free vanilla lattes keep me sane.
About Mrs. Stiletto

Bake Me a Skinny Cake!

May 12th, 2009 @ 4:31 pm by Mrs. Stiletto

I’ve been having cake nightmares lately. Not because I have any form of doubt surrounding Cathay from The Sugar Syndicate - she is superbly awesome and talented and will make us a fabulous cake! But I became worried that our beloved cake would be a little, well, short. I blame my panic on all of these wedding shows I watch were people have like 8 foot tall cakes. We, however, are having a reception for 120 people, and most definitely don’t need to have enough cake there to serve 500 people, hence us having ordered a 1 foot tall cake, instead.

I had been hesitant to contact Cathay because I knew that I couldn’t make any changes to the cake that would impact the price. We simply can’t justify it. But I continued to find myself worrying about the cake at odd times, so yesterday I finally emailed Cathay.

If you’ll remember, my cake inspiration had been this beautiful cake done by Cathay:

Bake Me a Skinny Cake! :  wedding cake Birdcak

Source: The Sugar Syndicate’s Flickr page

Ours would read “congratulations laura & steve” and would have tiers in varied heights, as the “bird cake” does, with this sort of teardrop pattern in black going down the left hand side:

Bake Me a Skinny Cake! :  wedding cake Cakeor01  Source: theknot.com

It sounds lovely, but still, I felt it might be short. And, I was struggling to find a cake stand that would work for the cake, since the bottom tier would be 12 inches in diameter, so Cathay encouraged me to have a stand that was at least 13 inches in diameter… not easy to find!

Stuck in the back of my mind was this “skinny” cake that Cathay had done before:

Bake Me a Skinny Cake! :  wedding cake Broochc  Source: The Sugar Syndicate’s Flickr page

I liked that that size felt very unique, and it definitely has some more height to it! So when I emailed Cathay yesterday, I referenced this cake… having no clue how many it served, and asked if it would be an option for us (again, with our same design elements was had decided on, just with different tier sizes). And… it will work! This cake also serves around 120 people, is 18 inches tall, and the bottom tier is 10 inches in diameter, so that would also help solve my cake stand issues.

I’m still waiting to hear back from Cathay to confirm that everything is golden, but it sounds like we should be able to make the switch and have a “skinny” cake (now, if only this also cut the calories!).

At the end of the day, would I have been happy with the cake we had originally planned? Of course. Am I happy that I didn’t dwell on “what if” and just emailed my fabulous vendor to see what other options there might be in order to fit our vision while staying within our budget? Absolutely!

Have you hesitated to make a change after booking a vendor?

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22 Responses to “Bake Me a Skinny Cake!”

1 2 

1.
Bee Icon
Bee
Miss Bruschetta (message)  5,565 posts, Bee Keeper

That skinny cake is so funky — I love it! Are the slices of cake, like, a TON of layers thick?

 
2.
Bee Icon
Bee
Miss Stiletto (message)  918 posts, Busy bee

@Miss Bruschetta:
Hee…do you like that I hadn’t even thought of that? :) I’d assume they’re thicker but they just won’t cut them as wide…by that point in the evening, I don’t think I’ll care :)

 
3.
Vic004
Member
Vic004 (message)  804 posts, Busy bee

I really like the skinny cake! Good choice!

 
4.
Mrs. Penguin
Bee
Mrs. Penguin (message)  3,499 posts, Sugar bee

I love your taste in cake! Every cake pic you’ve posted is oh so droolworthy… can’t wait to see how yours turns out!

 
5.
Guest Icon
Guest
Michelle L

I love love LOVE this idea!! I have been freaking out because we can’t afford a ginormous tiered cake, but this skinny cake is perfection! Thanks for sharing!

 
6.
LittleBear
Hostess
LittleBear (message)  800 posts, Busy bee

I love the design you have decided to go with! And I think the skinny cake will be perfect!

 
7.
Guest Icon
Guest
Ana

I love all three :-)

I wonder if those design styles can be achieved with buttercream . . ?

 
8.
PrettyKitty
Member
PrettyKitty (message)  505 posts, Busy bee

Love it! It totally reminds me of the huge cake with TONS of layers at the Cheesecake Factory….yes I order non cheesecake at the CF!

 
9.
Guest Icon
Guest
marclovesme

Our site put the cake on a 6″ pedestal on a high top table. Even though it only fed 35 guests (two tiers), it gave the illusion of height. We also did a topper that was about the same height as the layers, so that made it look larger too. Just some ideas!

 
10.
Miss Gloss
Bee
Miss Gloss (message)  1,222 posts, Bumble bee

I heart the skinny cake option! I think we are having a ’semi-skinny’ cake :)

 
11.
Member Icon
Member
Grey56 (message)  644 posts, Busy bee

I love the skinny cake! So cute! We’re doing something similar to the original inspiration cake, with different heights for the tiers. We’ll have 5 tiers (for 100ish guests) but two will be short. I think the cake is a great place to get a little funky, even for us traditional brides. :-)

 
12.
Miss Argyle
Bee
Miss Argyle (message)  2,516 posts, Sugar bee

Yes, actually! We were going to book one photographer, but I stumbled upon another I loved just as much (and she was a great price), so I think that we’ll be going with our second choice!

And I love the look of the skinny cake too; it gives the cake more presence.

 
13.
Miss French Bulldog
Bee
Miss French Bulldog (message)  7,730 posts, Bee Keeper

I LOVE the skinnier cake option (not that I didn’t love the other one, I just really like this one). I’m glad you decided to just email her instead of driving yourself nuts :)

 
14.
Guest Icon
Guest
Dawn

Our cake is going to be 4 tier but only serve 104 ppl. We have six small hexagon cakes for the bottom, a 12″ hexagon layer, a 9″ hexagon layer and then a 6″ round for the top layer. Our cake lady said that it doesn’t matter how many layers you have, she still charges by how many it serves. Ours will look like it could serve 300.

 
15.
miss mouse
Bee
miss mouse (message)  5,844 posts, Bee Keeper

I love the skinny-cake idea. So unique! Your cake is going to be beautiful!

 
16.
mary-alice-me
Member
mary-alice-me (message)  1,864 posts, Buzzing bee

Oh boy, it’s tough to change after you’ve something worked out! But I like the skinny cake idea, too. I hope your switch works out — but at least you asked, and asked in a way that didn’t discount the work she’d already done and what you’d already committed to.

 
17.
Member Icon
Member
ms boardwalk (message)  356 posts, Helper bee

that skinny cake looks nice! can’t wait to see what your new cake will look like.

 
18.
Member Icon
Member
wahmsuzanne (message)  5 posts, Newbee

love this cake! sorry i’m new and don’t know about the “other” choice … but this one’s awesome. ;) *SmiLes* Suzanne

 
19.
Miss Marine
Member
Miss Marine (message)  655 posts, Busy bee

I love your cake ideas! Have you considered adding a “faux” tier to make the cake taller? It’s essentially a piece of foam decorated to look like a tier… you just don’t cut into it! Then, you make the cake as tall as you want without having to pay for a billion pieces of REAL cake!

 
20.
Bee Icon
Bee
Miss Stiletto (message)  918 posts, Busy bee

@Miss Marine:
A fake tier is definitely something I’d thought of but we didn’t discuss it at the time of our tasting. I’ve heard from others that often you’re still charged (to some degree) for adding in a fake tier because they still have to spend time decorating that tier. I didn’t even want to bring it up with my baker because I knew if we talked about it, I’d want it (even if it cost more!) and I must not tempt myself to spend even another dollar on my cake :)

 
1 2 

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Mrs. Stiletto
Mrs. Stiletto

Mrs. Stiletto, Chicago Age and Occupation: 26, Non-Profit/Fundraising Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Engineer and Photographer Engagement Date: March 2, 2008 Wedding Date: September 2009 Venue: The 19th Century Club About Me: My fiance and I love living in the city of Chicago with our cats Basil and Linus, and vow to never move to the suburbs if we can possibly avoid it! We’ve poured ourselves into planning a wedding that reflects our personal style - modern and high contrast with a vintage twist. Blogging keeps me creative, baking keeps me happy, and grande nonfat no foam sugar free vanilla lattes keep me sane.

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