Weddingbee Blog

…was the task of setting up our cake-tasting appointments.

You can’t imagine (or maybe you can) how much I’ve nagged, pleaded, and begged for help from him with anything wedding related. I’ve asked for help with the DJ, the venue, the caterer, the menu, the photographer, and pretty much everything else you could think of. Sadly, I was met with a whole lot of “oops, I forgot” followed by the most pathetic puppy dog face (I mean, how could I get mad at that?).

To my surprise the story was different the day I asked him to set up our cake-tasting appointments. As usual, I asked if he had gotten it done, and my jaw dropped to the floor when I heard his reply.

Mr. Locket: “So what are you doing Saturday and Sunday? Because I set up appointments on Saturday for one bakery in Rochester and on Sunday for two in Syracuse. We could also set up more for next week, but I am waiting to hear back from people still…”

Seriously, I was shocked! I felt like celebrating and jumping for joy (mostly because I had been a stress-case all week…yay wedding stress!). I felt like a proud mom—my super-forgetful fiance had remembered to do something for our wedding! Maybe it had to do with pity on his part and the fact that my blood was beginning to boil, or maybe it was because there would be cake and he would get to eat it. Either way, he did his job and he did it well.

He had initially scheduled us an appointment for Saturday in Rochester…a very early appointment. Rochester is an approximately two hour drive from Ithaca, and if you know us, getting on the road at six am on a Saturday would be a tough task. Turns out neither of us woke up on time to go to that tasting , but we got to sleep in . The next day we had appointments scheduled for Biscotti and Cakes By Michele. First up was Biscotti, where we met with Janessa to discuss our options.

Biscotti:

We took a look around while we waited and found some pretty display cakes to ogle.

I was really drawn to this one because of the ivory and gold details:

After discussing pricing and possible cake sizes, we got to the fun part…eating some tasty cake. In the words of Homer Simpson, “MMMMmmmmmmm cake.”

source

Front: Lemon Raspberry Chiffon; Back: Tiramisu

And Chocolate Mousse

The cake was heaven sent, and we devoured each slice within a matter of minutes. Can you tell which flavor was our favorite?

Cake Carcasses:

As chocolate lovers, we were surprised to find that the Lemon Raspberry Chiffon was our favorite (if no one had been looking, we might have taken turns licking the plate.) It was super moist and so full of flavor; the lemon wasn’t overpowering and the raspberry was just right—I swear I could eat it all day. We did enjoy the other two flavors, but neither of them made us drool as much as the Lemon Raspberry Chiffon.

We didn’t come to a final decision that day, but we came up with an estimate and an idea.

The total pricing for a three-tiered cake (plus decorations) serving 110 guests + a sheet cake to serve an additional 40 guests came to 567 dollars (sans delivery fee). Now you are probably wondering what type of design we are planning on doing, right? Well, remember how I was drawn to that one display cake with the gold and ivory? The design we came up with would have some of its details.

Here we came up with a sketch of what we wanted:

• The bottom tier will mimic the display cake’s. The only difference is that ours would have shimmery ivory roses above each swag (that’s what those swirly things are in my drawing).
• The middle tier will have lace detailing on the top half.
• The top tier will mimic the bottom tier only there won’t be any drapes.

Overall, the first tasting was a success, and when we got to the car Mr. Locket wanted to stop right there. He was sold 100% and really didn’t care to go to our next stop, but I told him we had to since we had the appointment. (Unfortunately he was right, and I should have listened.)

Cakes By Michele:

Our next appointment at Cakes by Michele was, in one word, AWKWARD!

She was running her business out of her home and had us meet with her in a cramped room that could have been the size of a closet. She was friendly enough, but really didn’t have the intuitive responses to our questions that we would have liked. In other words there wasn’t a great connection with her, and we felt like we were forcing the conversations during our meeting. Another negative was that the cake samples we tried weren’t that great; they were a little bit too dry, and the flavor options were kind of blah. (We still had the taste of the Lemon Chiffon in our mouths—can you blame us for being harsh?) Not to mention the cost estimate was close to 1000 dollars for 150 guests. Overall, I wished we hadn’t taken the time for this tasting (Mr. Locket was right). Though I am sure she makes beautiful cakes, she just wasn’t for us.

With that second trip, our initial weekend of cake tasting came to an end. We were one step closer to deciding on who would make our cake, but I wasn’t convinced. We couldn’t know for sure until we did more research and ate more cake.

How did your cake-tasting trials go? Did you love the flavor you thought you would? Were there any awkward moments?

All photos are personal unless otherwise noted.