When it comes to wedding cakes, nothing matters more than the look and the taste. But choosing the perfect flavors, icing and accents to reflect your style can be tricky. We turned to five pastry experts from popular wedding locales to get the lowdown on the components that make a cake, well, take the cake!
Flavors
The first step in designing the confection of your dreams is choosing the cake and filling flavors. With taste, "the sky's the limit," says Deena Fisher of Sweet Dreams Special Occasion Cakes, in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. She offers nine fillings and 13 cake flavors, but she assures that if a client requests something not in her repertoire, "I'll invent something or work it out."
Like most chefs operating in smaller locales, Fisher doesn't have all the resources available in, say, New York City or Los Angeles. But experienced pastry artists improvise and make it a priority to deliver clients' wishes. "Although we're sometimes challenged by the availability of equipment," says Noida Cooke of Wedding Belles Jamaica, "we are masters in the art of substitution."
What's Hot Where
For couples with more traditional tastes, chocolate, vanilla and marble cake are still perennial favorites across the globe. That Southern staple, red velvet, is also a rising star in the confection world, notes Lauri Ditunno of Cake Alchemy, in New York City.
A growing trend among destination brides is to reflect the regional flavors of their chosen locale — think black-rum cake in Bermuda or huckleberry filling in Montana. "One of our most popular orders is coconut cake with Key lime mousse," says Erin Mayer of Key West Cakes, in Key West, Florida. "Due to our local agriculture, the limes are always fresh, which makes it taste better."
In Hawaii, it's all about fresh lilikoi, part of the passion-fruit family. "Our signature — white cake with vanilla whipped-cream custard and Logsdon lilikoi — is also our most popular," says Cheryl Logsdon of Maui Wedding Cakes, in Kihei, Hawaii. "But we can also mix it up with things like fresh guava, macadamia-nut mousse or Tahitian vanilla filling made with vanilla beans we import directly from Tahiti."
In Mexico, Fisher recommends incorporating local flavors like cajeta (a type of caramel) or dulce de leche, as well as fresh, seasonal fruits like mango or pineapple. A popular pick in Jamaica is rum cake filled with Baileys or Tia Maria (coffee liqueur) mousse, says Cooke. "Our traditional Jamaican fruitcake is also unique to our region," she adds. "It's a mixture of rum- and wine-soaked raisins, prunes and cherries mixed into a batter of butter, honey, sugar, eggs, flour and spices."
Can't decide between the wealth of tropical flavors? Do different-flavored tiers in the same cake. Or if you're headed to a chillier locale, consider richer, heartier options like carrot, apple spice, hazelnut or mocha.
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