When it comes to wedding cakes Deborah and I approach the subject from two very different angles. Deborah is concerned with taste where as I tend to care more about presentation. Okay, ‘tend to care’ is an understatement… Hello, my name is Michelle and I’m a Food Network Challenge addict. I have high fondant covered expectations which Deborah humors because she oddly loves the taste of fondant. From the beginning of our engagement, we knew we really wanted a ‘book cake’.
via Flickr Creative Commons, The Essex Vermont Resort and Spa
Thankfully, our area has an amazing cake lady that possesses major skills. Our initial meeting is in a few weeks. I get to bring in photo inspiration and then we take home mini-cakes to taste with our friends and family. Guess which one of us is excited about which?
Now, fondant frenzy aside– Deborah and I are both huge advocates of two cakes at a wedding, regardless of what they are called. Why you ask? The answer is easy. Two cakes = more deliciousness per square foot. I mean, why just have one cake when you can have one cake per person getting married? Deborah and I don’t want something that looks traditionally like a wedding/bridal cake and a grooms cake. We really want two cakes that reflect us but still hold a little traditional flair. Cue: The Croquembouche. A traditional French wedding cake that is composed of gazillions of cream puffs stuck together in a cone shape with caramel.
Via Flickr Creative Commons, andshewas
This takes my theory of two cakes = more deliciousness/sq. ft and multiplies it to the highest power! The cream puffs can be filled with a variety of flavored creams or chocolates, and often a combination of caramel and chocolate are used to keep the cone shape. Are you drooling yet?
Via Flickr Creative Commons user Aussiegold
But why a croquembouche? Well, Deborah and I are both francophiles and have taken French throughout high school and college. Deborah loving refers to me as “mon petite chou” every now and then. Technically, this translates to ‘my little cabbage’ but is still considered a sweet nickname in France. See? Even in terms of endearment, the French associate food and love. So, a croquembouche seemed fitting for us to have as our second cake. Plus, it makes the whole shoving cake in your newly married partner’s mouth a whole lot more pleasant. After all, tiny pillows of pastry dough filled with ganache are much cleaner and run a lower risk of mushing. Traditionally, the Croquembouche is ‘cut’ by striking it with a sword and having the guests try and catch the sugary shrapnel in tablecloths– total fun bonus.
The only catch is that this is a highly skilled piece of pastry art, and if a bakery doesn’t know what it’ doing the results can be disastrous and deflated. I have seen some croquembouches where the cone isn’t so much a cone but something that resembles the Leaning Tower of Pisa. After my fair share of googling, I have found one French trained chef in the area, and we spoke to him earlier today. Though confident in his croquembouche skills, he said he has never made one large one and suggested I think of some design options that would incorporate a medium size croquembouche with smaller pastry designs around it. We appreciated his honesty and love the idea of even more cakes! We are hoping to meet with him in the next few weeks. He has even offered to create a mini croquembouche with flavor samplings! C’est bon!
all i have to say is… yum, yum, YUM!
yum. another idea that might work for you is cake balls. It takes a similar cone shape and isn’t as tricky to execute. The flavors can all be different and they are really pretty. The vendor below is an example (that I have personally tasted, YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM):
http://www.austincakeball.com/
Mmmmmmmmmmm. Looks so yummy and hitting it with a sword makes me think of adult pinata.
OMG my BFF is a pastry chef by trade and I LOVEEEE Croquembouche! When I saw the title of this post pop up on my google reader, I was like YEEE!!! Delish!
Oh wow.
Beautiful, tasty, sticky AND fluffy.
The idea of cake balls is an interesting one. You can customize the flavors and colors, so that you have complimentary ones to the theme. Cake balls are a pretty “in” thing with right now with bakers, especially rural ones so I think you’d be able to find someone to do them easily.
But for my money, being served pastry with a SWORD trumps all.
Can I come to your wedding?
Also, swords associated with weddings = awesome. I decided I wanted to stand on the right side of my brother when we walked down the aisle so I could have my ‘sword hand’ ready just in case.