catheroominations

February 5, 2007

How sweet it is

02.03.07On Saturday Matte and I had our wedding cake tasting session. My sister the pastry chef came to offer her suggestions, as did our neighbor Liza. We only got to taste four of the twelve available flavors, but I think we chose the best four in the list. I’m glad we brought along third and fourth opinions because I woke up stuffed up and my taste buds were not performing at their highest capacity that morning. The samples are in the photo. From left to right, they are: traditional spice cake (spiced chiffon cake filled with praline buttercream and cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves), chocolate mocha mousse cake (filled with chocolate-mocha mousse lightly spiked with Kahlua), crème brulée chiffon (light vanilla chiffon cake with a luscious crème brulée filling studded with fresh strawberries), and chocolate-raspberry mousse cake (filled with rich dark chocolate mousse, soaked in Chambord liqueur and fresh raspberries).

First we tried the vanilla chiffon. Matte and I are both huge fans of crème brulée, so we had high hopes for this one. But the cake was, uh…dry. Like I almost cacked, it was so dry. I realize it’d been frozen for awhile, but there was no moisture to this cake whatsoever. And it wasn’t sweet enough for my taste. I did appreciate the little vanilla flecks in the filling, and the strawberries were good, but I immediately had flashes of guests clamoring across the table to pour a pitcher of water down their throats while gasping “Gah! This wedding cake is so dry! (hack!)”

The spice cake, our second taste, was much, much better. Yum. Oh. My. Gawd, Becky! I think it sucked up all the moisture that once resided in the chiffon cake because it was so moist, it almost melted in my mouth. And the filling was fabulous. Not too rich, not too sweet, but just right. And the icing was well, the icing on the cake.

Then came the two chocolate options. I don’t remember which we tasted first, because at my first taste I had a blood chocolate level of .5, which rendered me incapable of forming a logical thought. Wow. The devil’s food cake was good. It was moist and flavorful. But the pow came from the filling. I think I could have gotten drunk off the fumes alone. The chocolate mousse was so very delectably chocolaty. It was just hard to choose between the Chambord and the Kahlua filling. We ultimately chose raspberry after my sister informed me that the raspberries could keep the cake moister. Yes! Must have moist cake!

After we made this vital wedding decision, we headed over to the winery to show Sister and Liza where the wedding will be. I practiced walking to my entrance song, without taking a header down the steps, and then we tasted some wine. Because a breakfast of cake should always be followed by a wine course. And then we continued the wedding research at the restaurant that’s catering the wedding. All four of us tried the caesar salad (with homemade croutons) to accomodate our very large plates of food. We had to make sure our two judges agreed that the cuisine was sufficiently awesome to be served at our wedding. And it was. It is. It will be. Oh, you know what I mean.

2/6/07 UPDATED TO ADD: We opted for two flavors. Our wedding cake will have two layers of spice, and two of chocolate cake with raspberry mousse. I guess writing about all that chocolate got me dizzy again and I forgot to mention the winners!

12 people have roominated about “How sweet it is”

  • Dammit. I was so rooting for the spice cake early in the entry. I was hoping you’d stuff a piece in an envelope and mail it to me. *Sigh*

  • Scouser says:

    To quote a famous TV character “MMmmmm cake!!!”. 😛

    Here via Michele’s today.

  • Alison says:

    That is the kind of research I like to do. Yum!

  • wi says:

    could matte have favored anything else but chocolate? i am SO looking forward to that cake. can the mog have more, please?

  • Sarah says:

    Will guests be allowed a slice of each flavour, or must they choose?

  • Saj says:

    Choosing the cake was my favorite part of our wedding planning! Excellent choices, I must say! My mouth was watering while I was reading this!

  • music_mama says:

    yumma! both sound fabulous. always a fan of raising my blood chocolate level.

  • Michele says:

    We had the chocolate-raspberry mousse cake, it was SO good. I wanted to have 2 flavors too but couldn’t quite sell John on the idea.

  • (e) says:

    MOIST?? You used the word “moist” in your post? You HATE the word “moist”!!!

    I don’t even know you anymore. <sob>

    🙂

    … heinous!

  • Jenni says:

    Ha! (referring to e’s comment).

    I’m glad you went with two cake choices. The spice cake sounds divine, but then, so does the chocolate. Isn’t cake-tasting fun! I’m a bit disappointed that sis won’t be making the cake though. I bet she could whip up something AMAZING!

  • Carmi says:

    I like the mixing-flavors idea. Wish I had thought of it when we got married.

    One cool tradition from our wedding: we froze a hunk of the cake and ate it on our first anniversary.

    It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be!

  • roni says:

    This post fascinated me because here in Australia a traditional wedding cake is a heavy dark spiced cake full of dried fruit – raisins, sultanas, glace cherries, currants and so on. A fair bit of brandy goes into the mixture, and that serves as a good preservative. Long before refrigeration was around a lot of couples kept the top layer of the cake to be eaten at the christening of the first baby. Some still do. There you are – a bit of wedding trivia for you.

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