Happy??

Finally! The only post my sister keeps bugging me about.

Our cake artist/baker/whatever you wanna' call her is Renee from Bella Manse:

She was very nice, very with it, but not too serious. She entertained us (me, Mama, and the man) in her house?bakery?showroom?? I actually loved that I had no idea which it was. We were in this really nice dining room with really nice furnishings that looked like a very cozy dining room for a family but she also had her cakes displayed there.

We tasted a myriad of flavors; spice cake, white cake, yellow butter cake, lemon cake, chocolate cake, banana cake and a myriad of frostings; white chocolate mousse with strawberry/raspberry/blueberry filling, peanut butter, pumpkin, cinnamon whip cream and her fantastic buttercream. She let us try some of her fondant and chocolate fondant (tasted like tootsie rolls!) and let us combine whatever cake with whatever filling to our hearts' content.

I was a bad blogger and didn't take any pictures. It still feels weird to me to go to someone's place of business and start taking pictures of all their stuff. But I know most people are used to it nowadays.

Anyway, everything was phenomenal (except the banana, but that was not her fault, I hate banana)! I have never been a fan of fruit in my cake, but it melded so well with the mousse and the cake so that it was perfect. The cake itself was just firm enough but still moist. Very very satisfying; of all the vendors we've seen, this was the most fun, obviously.

So we started talking design and I showed her my two most-inclusive inspirational photos:

 


So, here's the breakdown we gave her:

• We love the irregular sizes of the tiers in the right hand cake, so we requested a 4 tier round cake, with the top and third tiers taller and the second and bottom tiers squat.
• We love the look of the chocolate fondant, especially because our venue is so all-over white, so we requested chocolate fondant
• While I love the dark chocolate fondant, Kyle and I both agreed that it would be a little too modern and we wanted something a little warmer so we asked for light (milk) chocolate fondant.
• I liked the streamlined nature of the left hand cake but Kyle said there wasn't enough going on, so we settled on NO PLEATS but YES to the band of fondant going along the bottom of the tiers, as in the right hand cake.
• For a nice contrast, we asked for the tiers to be light chocolate fondant but the strip along the base of each tier to be dark chocolate fondant
• We don't need ribbons or sugar flowers; not only are those things more expensive than they're worth (in my opinion) but I love our theme of balsa wood flowers and we are going to keep it going. I already talked to our florist and she is going to provide balsa wood flowers, some wheat stalks, guinea hen feathers, and maybe a few of the burgundy calla lilies for cake decoration.

So, at the end of all that, here's what you're left with:

Now, I can only apologize so much for my lack of prowess on Photoshop, so I will only ask once more for you to use your imagination and picture balsa wood flowers running down the cake as well as some guinea hen or pheasant feathers and some wheat stalks. Imagine them wherever you want. Go nuts.

Now... flavors... we went a little crazy because she told us to (well, our definition of crazy), she gave us so much leeway as far as our number of choices. We could pick two cake flavors for the whole cake and TWO different fillings for each tier.

Now, I have to be honest, I looooooved her spice cake but if we had gone with spice cake, we would have been limited filling-wise (didn't want to go too flavor crazy!) so we went with her yellow butter cake, which was fantastic, and not at all bland, but still, a little more of a blank canvas. Then we asked for white chocolate mousse + strawberry for the top tier, oreo cookie buttercream  + chocolate mousse for the second tier, white chocolate mousse + raspberry for the third tier, and finally peanut butter + chocolate mousse for the bottom tier...

Nom nom nom nom!!!! I cannot wait to dig into this cake and have one piece from each tier!! I. am. so. EXCITED!!!

Now, I am still wavering a little bit on cake flavors, because I thought maybe we should go with a marble on the oreo cookie layer, but didn't really think of that till like, just now. The great thing about Renee is that she told me I could change my mind as many times as I wanted up until three weeks before the wedding. I love her, I cannot wait to eat cake!!

We didn't even go to see any other bakers after we met with Renee. She was willing to work with us on everything and her prices were really competitive. This was one of our easiest decisions wedding-wise (yay!!).

So, how was your cake tasting?? Did you fall in love with the first baker you met with, like we did? Or did you shop around?

Sister Jordan, are you happy???