Let Them Eat Cake

Cake tasting yesterday! I made back to back appointments for us at two different places.  Bakery #1 had some really tasty cakes all lined up for us to dig into.

We both like butter cream instead of whip cream for the frosting. I like the smoothness and rounded edges that you get with a fondant frost but that is more expensive and apparently it's very very sweet.

Our favorites were:

*Chocolate Peanut Butter: Chocolate peanut butter cake with peanut butter folded into the mousse, and a layer of fudge to top it off.

*Chocolate Mousse: Amazingly light chocolate cake with an airy chocolate mousse.

*Pudding Chiffon: Our moist yellow cake with our light Bavarian cream, one thin layer of raspberry & one thin layer of lemon, cherry or strawberry jam.

As we started to get into looking at Cake Designs Mj turned into a YES man which I hate. He felt he got shot down on his ideas so just started saying yes to everything I asked about. I want his opinion even if I don't always agree. This is OUR cake and I want us to both like it so I told him he better stop it. The cakes there would run us about $393 for a 3 layer that feeds 75 or $443 if we need to add an extra sheet cake to feed an extra 25. The delivery fee is $40 and they charge a $50 deposit for the cake supports which we have to give back in order to get refunded for it.

At bakery #2 the prices were certainly right but we did not like the cake flavors as much. They were only charging $275 for a 3 layer that serves 100. They add $25 if we want to make our cake pink and there is a $35 delivery fee. For tasting they gave us the cake and the fillings separately. They were not actually pre made with all of the layers and fillings put together like the first place. I fell in love with their Peanut Butter Mousse and it tasted really good with their marble cake. We also liked their lemon cake. I don't remember with what filling. We only want to offer two different flavors to guests.

They had some really great designs.We both prefer simplicity and elegance. I really like the first one. We'd do pink with black decoration and black ribbon around the bottom. Mj likes the bottom one in pink using black ribbons around the bottom and pink flowers branching down the cake. He likes how each layer is off center.

I haven't decided if I want to freeze the top layer for a year later. It's traditional but unless we come up with an airtight freezing method it really doesn't sound all that appetizing to me. I'm not really sure what we are going to do. We didn't book either one. There is still one more place I am going to visit on my way home next week. I can get prices and he will send me home with some cakes to try and then I guess we will just have to make a decision from there. Ideally we need to decide by the end of this month. And yes, you really can have too much cake. We were both "caked out" by the end but it was fun.

Meanwhile, the RSVP's have been trickling in.  It makes it so real that we are really having a wedding.  And pretty soon too.  We have guests!  And we definitely plan to let them eat cake.