I’m going to say something grossly unpopular, but I’m totally over cupcakes at weddings.  I miss wedding cakes. I want to embrace them again. (Suddenly, I’m becoming a traditionalist? Not quite). However, I should say that I am NOT totally over cupcakes.  As a matter of fact. just yesterday I indulged in a delightful little chocolate one that Rebecca brought into the office.  She makes them with a Rasberry jam frosting.. really wonderful.   Anyway, I love them for showers, for the day-after brunch and I even think they could be thoughtfully worked in as a food station or at an engagement party – imagine it as a pre-amble to the wedding cake.

In any case, over the last couple of years, with the cupcakes in lieu of wedding cake trend in full swing, we’ve seen cupcake decor in all shapes and sizes- cupcake wraps, cupcake toppers, cupcake trees.  We’ve seen cupcakes elevated to an artform, so why not ELEVATE your cupcake?  I love the idea of cupcakes on a cake-like stand, but with traditional stands that could get very costly.  These cupcake stands from Hello Hanna (made out of recycled cardboard) are only $10.95 for a set of 6 stands.  How ADORABLE would it be to have a cupcake at each guests seat at your shower or wedding brunch…. especially if it was in a similar flavor to your cake from the night before? Maybe you could stick a little flag in each one and have it act as a place card?  Anyway, these renewed my enthusiasm for cupcakes and got me excited for the National Stationery Show, where Hello  Hanna will be exhibiting.

If you hadn’t heard from our twitter feed, we’ve moved recently.  Somehow the allure of Canal Street and the hustle bustle of the counterfeit bag industry lost some of it’s appeal and so we decided to move our operation a little further south into Tribeca.   It’s amazing! The phone lines aren’t up completely and the internet still doesn’t really work yet BUT it’s pretty and it’s quiet and as far as moves in Manhattan go, it was relatively untraumatic.

Yesterday, having gotten some of our bearings, we decided to pay a visit to one of our neighbors, Laurie Ditunno of Cake Alchemy.  You may have seen Laurie on the show Amazing Wedding Cakes as well as the David Tutera show.  Her newish (she moved downtown in December) showroom is just around the corner from us in Tribeca and it is quite literally a delightful gallery of amazing designs. Laurie is a graduate of the French Culinary institute and has amazing techniques with pulled sugar which includes these gorgeous blown sugar pieces (think blown venetian glass) as well as more traditional sugar flowers.  I’d seen some of her cakes on TV, but in truth they really blew me away in person.

BUT what really got my attention was this fabulous thing that Laurie offers for bridal showers in her lovely (and HUGE) space…. Baking classes for Bridal Showers!!! Literally once a week a friend or a reader will email me looking for SOMETHING new to do for a shower that covers the biggest challenges of giving showers in NYC (some place to have it and some thing to do). What better idea than to don your aprons and put together a sweet little something for the soon to be Mrs.?  Prices depend on size of the party, so contact Laurie’s studio directly for more information.

To be honest, I’ve been completely brain washed over the last decade when it comes to wedding cakes.  I sort of felt that if you don’t have fondant, you are going to be left with a messy, 80′s style confection of buttercream and lace frills and sloppy looking frosting flowers.  If you wanted style and pizazz, then you were going to have to endure a layer of rolled fondant over your baked delight and if you hated the texture or the test… well, it’s the price of beauty.

So I was delighted when I found out about Nine Cakes, whom I’d read about via Brooklyn Bride (she’s participating in the Urban Wed event).  I had a client on my hands who really hated fondant, and wanted simple, delicious goodness.  I thought I’d ask Betsy what her take on this was and if she could show me what people were doing with buttercream these days.  I was BEYOND surprised with the images of gorgeous confections that she sent my way.

Her buttercream cakes look just dreamy, with artful decorations that seem almost dreamy. AND the TASTE!  As light and airy as the cakes look and just so yummy. We sort of pigged out at the event at BAM a couple of weeks ago.  Here’s a pic of one of my FAVORITE of Betsy’s cakes, but for more cake porn, check out her delightful site.

Though I generally am afraid of carbohydrates and most other baked goods, I couldn’t resist the delicious smells at my client’s cake tasting meeting a couple of weeks ago.  We were meeting with Love Street Cakes and something smelled like brown sugar (in the best way), a scent that I’m not used to smelling often enough.  What made this particular meeting even more interesting is that Archana, the owner of Love Street, isn’t just a baker, she’s also a bride to be!

Archana started Love Street Cakes just last year, but she is no novice.  After graduating from NYU, she went on to study Pastry and Baking at the Culinary Institute of America and from there apprenticed at one of the city’s most reknown bakers before doing at stint at Brooklyn’s Sweet Melissa bakery.  Her cakes are delightful in appearance, and she has some amazingly innovative ideas (like this gorgeous “water color” cake recently featured in NY Magazine).  And the taste? Well, it was certainly worth an extra few minutes on the treadmill!

This last cake has NOTHING to do with weddings at all….. I just liked it.Pigs!

I was really excited when I got the “Get Married” Top 10 Trends of 2010, which included non-linear aisles (something I saw a lot of this year and also at the ABC conference), cobalt blue (a personal favorite) and glam for guys- think Old Hollywood, not Glambert. Anyway, one thing that I saw this year that I think would be an amazing trend is multiple cakes instead of just one wedding cake.  For us this started out as a solution to a practical problem, that evolved into an expression of both design and tastebuds.

Rachel and Noah’s good friend from Canada really wanted to bake their wedding cake. Problem is, she would never be able to transport a cake of quite the size that they would need to feed the guestlist of nearly 140.  So, we had a thought… why not have one smaller wedding cake surrounded by a display of other mini-cakes.  We knew we would use different cake stands to create an artistic display and this gave the guests a chance to have many, many flavors of cake, including some of those things that just don’t work as well when you need to construct a more elaborate wedding cake, like the strawberry shortcake.  The clients worked with Cheryl Kleinman to design a series of mini-cakes to reflect the homey, ecclectic look of their wedding (pics of which I will eventually have to share with you!) and this was the result.(pardon my horrible photography skills)

Weren’t they adorable?  One had a blue toile, which was printed on rolled fondant, then there was the pumpkin cake, the cake with the birds next, the strawberry cake and my personal favorite, the cake with the marzipan figs on top.. it was stunning.  While the look of this wedding was autumnal and eclectic, I could see this concept working well for weddings using graphic prints and bold color on the fondant.  Additionally, by going this route, the couple spent a bit less than they might have on one more elaborate cake, but it contributed to the overall look and feel of the room.

What do you think of multiple cakes???