Cake is "My Passion"

Lara Stuckey, the talented pastry chef/artist who will be doing my cake, has finally launched the opening of her bakery, Fluffy Thoughts, in Mclean, Virginia. My sister and I were there this past Friday for a visit, and to take a few things home, of course.

Here is a picture of the slice of "My Passion" cake that I brought home to my mom. I mention it in my previous post about the wedding cake. Its the main flavor that will make up about 50% of the cake that i've ordered for the wedding. I got a 2nd slice for Mr. Smallville to try as well.

Again, its her white cake, with blackberry buttercream, passion fruit curd, and vanilla buttercream frosting. And I must say, that passion fruit is like crack.

My mom and dad loved it. Mr. Smallville ended up scarfing it down in a few bites. it was his dinner for last night!

Below is a picture of her red velvet with cream cheese icing:

This one is a sample of one of my other flavors, "Mine Oh Mine," which will be red velvet cake, dark chocoloate ganache, 2 rows cream cheese and 1 row cookies and cream (oreo) buttercream.

With my pending trip to manila and my frequent change of mind about my dress design, there might be revisoins to the original design i spoke to Lara about in the first meeting. We'll see once i get back from manila on the 23rd of this month.

mmmm, cake!

THE CAKE... a very important detail: Part II

I'm sure you remember my post on a Wedding Cake Verses Wedding Cupcakes.

Six lovely words.

Fluffy Thoughts Cakes by Lara Stuckey

All her cakes are about 4-5 inches high, with 4 rows of cake, and three rows of buttercream. Between each layer of buttercream and cake, she also applies a thin layer of "spread," be it ganache, curd, or jam. Below is a slice shot from her website of marble cake, with 2 rows of vanilla and 1 row of chocolate filling, and a facebook shot of her white cake w/ raspberry buttercream and fresh raspberries:

Um.. YUM!


I went to a cake tasting in early January. What did i think? Her cakes taste amazing!


And the fact that she was a fine arts minor, and I was a Fine Arts Major, and she specialized in sculpture really makes me confident that my cake will look awesome!


THE TASTING

Presentation was impressive, ultra chic, lovely, and the cakes taste WONDERFUL! I wish i brought a camera because the layout was soo cute with the tiny cakes and the baby scoops of fillings!

She makes amazingly moist, dense cakes, which we were able to sample with different buttercream fillings and spreads.

The process:

• You dip your fork into a spread.
  
• You scoop a bit of buttercream onto your fork
  
• You cut the cake w/ your fork
  
• You place it in your mouth and experience something magical

UH - MAY- ZING!!

From what i could recall...

Flavor of mini cakes she had us try (all lined up in a row) were: Mocha Chocolate (Devil's Food), Red Velvet, Marble, White Chocolate (with bits of white choc), Yellow Cake, White Cake

Buttercreams: Vanilla, Chocolate, Hazelnut (w/ crushed caramelized hazelnuts), Raspberry, Blackberry, Lemon, Orange, Coconut (w/ shredded coconut pieces), Cream Cheese, Cookies and Cream (Crushed Oreos), Coffee

Spreads: Passion Fruit Curd (my favorite), Raspberry Jam, Milk Chocolate Ganache, Dark Chocolate Ganache

Other Fillings: Volrhona Crunchies, Fresh Strawberries

THE FINAL DECISION:

I went with her. In fact, I gave her my deposit at the tasting.

Here are my design/flavor decisions:

Five Tier design - The cake would be covered in an Ivory Fondant with light orange lace and orange and gold gilded swirls on each tier (she’s going to copy the swirls on my invite). A gold Sugar ribbon would be added to the base. She'll draw, scan, and email me a final sketch when it gets closer. I am eager to see the results.

A dilemma... mom was hoping for a huge cake on a dime-like budget. I brought this up to Lara and she came up with a solution:

The top 4 tiers will be decorated styrophoam, bottom tier will be real cake, and I’ll have 2 sheet cakes in the back (all to save money).

Flavor Choices:

• 1st flavor (bottom tier, 100 servings) - “My Great Passion” White cake w/ Passion Fruit curd and Blackberry Buttecream


• 2nd flavor (Sheet cake #1, 50 servings) – “Mine oh Mine” Red Velvet with Dark Ganache, 2 layers of cream cheese filling and one layer of cookies and cream (oreo) filling
  
• 3rd flavor (Sheet cake #2, 50 servings) – “Starbucks on Steroids”White Chocolate Cake, Milk Chocolate Ganache, 2 layers of Hazelnut Buttercream and one layer of Coffee buttercream

Suffice to say that if a month after your tasting you're still dreaming about the cake you ordered, I'd say you made a great decision!

Is it bad that aside from marrying Mr Smallville, this is the one thing I'm looking most forward to?

To Cupcake or to Cake? That is the question

For the longest time, I've obsessed over the new cupcake fad that has hit DC.

In fact it's been 2 years, and i'm still hooked.

Considering i joined Weight Watchers last month, well I cant exactly indulge anymore.

But yes, I do love cupcakes.

My favorite spot: Georgetown Cupcake

So they deliver, but their delivery range is like, what, within the Beltway, (immediate DC metro Area). Problem? I live outside the Beltway. My wedding IS WAY outside of the beltway.

Because of this, I had this weird assumption that they wont cater weddings as far as the beltway.

I also have another dream:

A Stacked Tier Wedding Cake.... with fondant lace and a ribbon trim.

I also wanted a cake with several rows of filling (because i like the opportunity to make combo flavored [busy] desserts), whos cake was as dense and moist as Georgetown cupcake.

About two years ago, in all my "advanced wedding research" I stumbled a cross a wedding cake site called Fluffy Thoughts (FL).

She lives in McLean, and operates her business from her home. She is a pastry chef who worked for CakeLove in College, and studied the business there. Her major was Psych, and minor in, get this, FINE ARTS.

I was a fine arts major myself, but I went into the computer part of it with Graphic Design, Multimedia, Video, and Animation. However, i have a deep appreciation for fine artists, and the fact that she uses her sculpture and artistic background in making her cakes totally intrigues me.

So for the last year or so, I'd been following her site, and her blog. I kept telling myself that once i get engaged, i'm calling her!

So i was set on that, completely set.

but hmm... $5+ per slice of cake vs $2.4o-ish for a Gtwon cupcake.

I started to think about budget, and decided to actually email Gtown Cupcake... just to see what was up.

Turns out they deliver (but don't set up) anywhere they can drive! of course there is a delivery fee, but they do deliver to places such as Gainesville, VA, where I'm having my wedding, for about $75.

Well crap.

So what am I to do?

It shouldn't have been a second thought, but considering the year or so I obsessed on FL's site, I really owed it to myself to consider all the options

Clearly, I don't need to taste Gtown's Cupcakes, because i know they're BLISS in the palm of my hand...

So I had to call Lara Stuckey of FL, and set up an appointment with her.

I knew I'd do Georgetown in a heartbeat if I didn't LOVE her and her product when I met her.

We'll see about that.

To be continued...