Cake tasting is probably one of the most enjoyable parts of wedding planning for most people, and ours was that, plus something more than just fun and delicious. Our cake tasting last weekend felt like a very early stage of the wedding itself, in a way. It gave Chris and me a chance to connect more and to talk about how the cake represents us and our new life together.
We found our cake baker, Jen Katzinger at Flying Flower Specialty Sweets, through a recommendation from our wedding coordinator. Jen previously owned Flying Apron, a vegan and gluten free bakery in Seattle, but sold it and moved to Whidbey Island with her family a few years ago. She’d recently started baking professionally again, as a one-woman specialty bakery. We emailed her after excitedly reading through the descriptions of her cakes. A couple emails later, we had booked our cake baker!
Jen normally does cake tastings on Whidbey, but knowing we’d only be in the area for a short weekend visit, she offered to bring the cake tasting to us in Port Townsend. We met at Velocity Coffee in downtown Port Townsend. She recognized us before we even walked in, waving and smiling through the window. When we walked in, we saw three cake boxes on the table. Chris got us coffee, I poured us some water from the water dispenser, and then we got started.
Jen had brought three small cakes, each frosted and decorated differently. We started off talking about the styles of the cakes, discussing ideas for the different tiers. When Jen mentioned a frosting design that looks like birch wood, both Chris and I got excited. Wood is a major theme of our wedding décor, representing our love of the outdoors. A cake with a natural woodgrain look made perfect sense. We also liked one of the textures on the sample cakes that reminded us of flower petals, so we decided on a mixed texture for the layers.
Then we cut into the cakes. All three were frosted in luscious Italian buttercream and the cake texture was dense but tender. The first one we tasted was earl grey cake with blackberry filling. The earl grey tea flavor was light but distinct. Chris and I drink earl grey almost every day, so it tasted familiar but elevated. Next was vanilla cake with blackberry and lemon curd filling. Berries and lemon are two of my favorite flavors, and I instantly fell in love with it. The last cake was the most unique, a rose water cake with raspberry filling. My first bite didn’t have much rose flavor, but as a took a second bite I inhaled a deep floral aroma. It truly was like eating roses. The raspberry filling was delicious, tart and sweet. Jen was nervous about whether we’d like the rose cake, and Chris and I were probably a good sample of the potential reactions. He loved it, delighting in the experience of eating cake that tasted like flowers. I was more skeptical, but intrigued, and it reminded me of drinking an interesting wine. All three cakes were very different, and all of them were delicious. My favorite was the lemon cake, while Chris loved the rose, and we both loved the earl grey.
Decision time came, but there really wasn’t much to decide. Since we plan to have a three-tiered cake, we could choose three flavors. So all we really had to decide was which cake to make which layer. Lemon will be the largest bottom tier, earl grey in the middle, and rose will be the top, frosted with the petal design. The only other change we decided to make from the sample cakes was the filling. Instead of blackberry filling, we’ll have raspberry in all three layers to unify them.
Throughout the tasting, we chatted with Jen about work and life, family and careers. It was an easy conversation, and we could have stayed there drinking coffee for much longer. Those are the kinds of conversations that remind me how important friendship is. By the time we said goodbye, I felt like our wedding cake was in good hands and that our lives were richer in more than just butter and cream.