Let them eat wedding cake!

For a quick gallery of more knockout wedding cakes, click here.

Bakerycentrism continues as la.foodblogging weighs in on Valley bakeries. It's a fine list that includes Big Sugar Bakeshop, Layers Cakes and Leda's Bake Shop (among others). Meanwhile, Callie Miller, she of the Sweet Lady Jane rant, has promised to keep me apprised of her cake hunt (Clean lines yes, foofy frosting flowers no).

However, all of this points to a bizarre truth: Los Angeles has crazy money. Furthermore, we have a city of crazy-monied bridezillas who want their weddings to resemble movie premieres. We are also a city of creatively minded souls (like our brave Callie) who are neither crazy nor bridezillas but would like their wedding cakes to be interesting, unique and bear no resemblance to their fourth-grade bedrooms, when you still thought Cinderella was really neat.

So why are we not a city of multiple go-to bakeries for brilliant, knockout, sophisticated wedding cakes? Why are we letting New York put us to shame?

If you know differently, help a Knife out. Comment or holler.   

Comments

[b. radley]

RE: Callie--- I'm dying to hear if Sweet Lady Joan Crawford has any response.

[Doug Cress]

Dana, it looks like it may be a cost/cake issue - Los Angelenos have crazy money - New Yorkers have stupid money. The cakes pictured in NYMag cost 2 - 2.5 times as much as their Variety brethren.

[Dana]

Granted, those NY cakes are crazy expensive -- but keep in mind that SLJ starts at $7 a slice. That's the bare minimum. I still think LA cakes are troubled more by aesthetics than cash.

For what it's worth, my wedding cake came from Zingerman's (it's Ann Arbor, MI, so they start at $6/slice) and they managed to be simple in both price and presentation. The cakes were solid pale colors, with large contrasting frosting dots (I stole the idea from an issue of Martha Stewart Living -- so sue me). And they weren't tiered, but placed on separate tiers, which probably helped with the cost. No fondant, just buttercream icing -- real buttercream, maybe the best I've ever had. More creamy than sweet and not too much of it.

[Sheila Newbery]

I want that cake it looks so yummy.

[lst]

The best cake in LA is at cakewalk bakery. She only uses the best ingredients and her flavors are richly subtle. The chocolate is to die for (a personal fave), and the cardomom flavored cake is also of special note - ever so slightly spicy, completely unique. Her cakes are simple and classy, and as delicious as can be. No better choice for any occasion. She's been profiled here and there, but she definitely deserves a lot more notice than she's been getting.

http://www.cakewalkbakery.net/

[Big Bomb]

Wedding Cakes at weddings needs to go out to die on the ice floe with the cheesy wedding march.

Sophisticated weddings have watermelon cutting ceremonies.

[Doug Cress]

Hey Dana,

Good to see you took the simple/more sophisticated route for your own wedding. The cake sounds close to what I would want on my own big day.