enJOY it

an archived personal and craft blog from Elise Blaha Cripe.

wedding wednesday : cake.

September 23, 2009

This whole "plan a wedding" plan has shook out pretty well. There are certain decisions to be made but minimal drama in making them. I limit my options, and go with my instinct. Like the dress: it is pretty, it fits well, Paul liked it online and it feels like me. DONE. Like the venue: it's beautiful, it's near the church, the staff is nice and the food is good. DONE. Like the flowers: they're lovely, simple & orange. DONE. And on and on and on.

So, somewhat naively, I thought ordering a cake would be well…a piece of cake.

One thing that Paul and I agree on is that it's more important that the cake tastes perfect than looks perfect. (READ: NO FONDANT.) We both love carrot cake and decided we would go with a few minimally decorated tiers with cream cheese frosting. I wanted something that looked like this or this.

And then, in July, we went to the bakeries and our dreams melted.

Did you know that cream cheese frosting is too soft to stack into tiers? It is.

"No worries," we said, "we'll just get a few round cakes and place them at different heights next to each other." It will look cool, we figured. We even drew a sketch of our plan.

Did you know that the cream cheese frosting will melt if not refrigerated? It will.

"Hmmmmm." we said.

It took awhile to get all the information, but every bakery vetoed our cream cheese frosting plan. They were all willing to make carrot cake with butter cream frosting but that sort of defeats the purpose. Cream cheese frosting sort of makes the carrot cake.

Since then, I have just sort of ignored the cake issue. If possible, I would continue to ignore it until April 25th, but something tells me that is a lame idea.

What we know is that taste matters above all. So part of me thinks we just get a few fabulous tasting carrot sheet cakes and keep them refrigerated until it's time to serve. For the all important cake cutting ceremony (which really no one but the photographer seems to notice) Paul and I could use a small round carrot cake that gets brought out just in time to be cut and ate by us.

Thoughts on cake, internet? Did you have carrot cake at your wedding? DID IT MELT? Do you hate cake and think we should serve pie? Are you a local Sacramento baker who makes fabulous carrot cake? I'd love to hear.

Posted in wedding

57 responses to “wedding wednesday : cake.”

Lisa Russell

September 24, 2009

I had a 4 tiered carrot cake at my wedding and it did not melt. Even with cream cheese frosting. It was beautiful! And here is an idea I saw and IMMEDIATELY thought of you!! It is so E&P…
http://thingsfestive.weddingstar.com/6066-O+Brushed+Silver+Monogram+Cake+Toppers_refine:473;
And if you use this idea, just say it was “Lisa’s Idea”! haha
Everything sounds wonderful!! Keep it up!
Lisa Russell

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Tanya Gilmartin

September 24, 2009

for our wedding, we had a large slab of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting that was kept in the fridge, and brought out already cut up on plates when it was time to be served. for our “wedding cake” we had a “dummy” cake. syrofoam layers of cake- decorated with icing and stacked and decorated how ever we wanted. We posed with the cake knife above the dummy cake for photos. it looked great and not may people realized the cake they were eating was NOT the display cake!
Good luck!

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Paulette Sarsfield

September 24, 2009

Heloo you sweet girl,
I am a good friend of Kal’s (the honeycrisp girl) & would never lead you a stray…
I have two Children married and just made the cakes for a good friends daughter,& by the way, one wedding was the HOTTEST day in July (ever been to Nova Scotia with all the humidity?!?) We all love carrot cake & I have had good luck with carrot cake & cream cheese frostingat all of these weddings. If you would like some details, just email me. In the mean time I do have a pic on my blog of a most recent cake… pretty don’t you think?The best part is they taste better than they look! Good luck & just so you know, you won’t remember the cake but your guests will!

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Thinkie

September 27, 2009

we didn’t have ‘a’ cake but just assorted bits and pieces. In stead of a ‘cut the cake’ photo we got a ‘have fun feeding each other cake without smearing it all over’ photo. Unfortunately the people serving out the cake knocked over one of the boxes. There was still enough for everyone but it meant no sugarfree pastry for my grandmother… (we were on a boat so they couldn’t run to the bakery to get more)

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Lauren

September 29, 2009

We had a three tier carrot cake with cream cheese to frosting which was to DIE for… major YUM!!!!!
We got married outside and had our reception inside in August. The cake was by a window, but not in direct sunlight. We had no problems with melting.
Here’s a link if you would to see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18572605@N02/3967086910/

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Leni

October 1, 2009

I’m a huge fan of carrot cake. One of the best carrot cakes I’ve ever tried is from The Cheesecake Factory. Seriously. Go there and order a slice. It’s AMAZING! (Make sure you dont get the carrot cake cheesecake, because it’s not the same!)

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Jenn

October 5, 2009

I’m way behind on commenting on this, but if it is still up in the air here are my two cents. We were having trouble with the cake thing too… and all was solved when we discovered the place that was doing our wedding had a chocolate fondue option. Each table got a bowl of chocolate, kept warm by a candle, and an assortment of fruits and marshmallows. It was a huge success and we haven’t missed having cake cutting pictures at all.

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