Hows to shop for and select your wedding cake

Wedding Cake Bakeries and Pastry Chefs in the tri-state Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, area.

Your wedding cake is much more than just the centerpiece for your reception. Your cake makes a strong statement to your family and guests about who you are, about your flair for originality and creativity, and about your taste. It tells your guests that your reception will be no ordinary reception, but an event that your guests will long remember. After all, taste and smell are the strongest memories!

Your guests will remember the cake long after the party favors, the so-so catering, and the decorations are long forgotten. They will have photos of you and your groom cutting the cake. (Who takes photos of the catering or the party favors?) Your cake must live up to some pretty high standards if your wedding reception is to be remarkable and memorable. If find that you must cut back on your budget, cut back on the flowers, the music, the decorations, or the party flavors--but never on the cake!

Questions to ask when shopping for your wedding cake.

Wedding Cake Prices

Prices range from about $2.00 per slice (for cake made in somebody's home) to as high as $15.00 a slice (in New York and San Francisco). In Cincinnati, the average works out to just about $5.00 per slice. Be aware that most bakeries advertise a low base price and then add on to it when you actually place the order. For instance, their base price might be $3.50 per slice, but for extra flavors and fillings you have to add 25 cents or more per slice for each extra item, making the final price closer to $4.50 per person.

Wedding Cake Styles

Should your cake echo your color scheme, the detail on the bodice of your gown? Should it be topped with a tiara to complement the one you wear? Should the flowers match your table-top flowers or your bouquet? There are so many possibilities! An experienced staff will guide you through the decision-making process. You should be able to view many samples in their showroom or leaf through photographs showing bride's cakes in detail, on location in actual reception halls.

Wedding Cake Display

How will your wedding cake be displayed? Does the shop offer silver cake stand rental? Will they sprinkle the table top with rose petals? Do they offer a complete set-up and on-site floral decoration service?

Fresh or frozen?

Nothing will ruin the taste of a wedding cake quicker than baking it days before the wedding and freezing it, as many bakeries do. A cake made with butter and fresh ingredients has to be kept at a temperature below the melting point of butter, but it never has to be frozen. Be sure and ask if they store the finished cake in a refrigerator (never lower than 44 degrees) or a freezer. Remember--taste and smell are the strongest memories. Your guests will remember the cake long after the wweather, flowers, decorations, and reception hall are forgotten.

Wedding Cake Tastings

Does the cakery do tastings and how many flavors do they allow you to taste? The best cakeries offer least four and often as many as six different cakes to taste. These should be layered cakes, with fillings and icing, just like your wedding cake will be.

Fresh ingredients or artificial?

For decades, bakeries have found it cost-effective and speedy to order their icing, cake-mix, and fillings in five gallon drums from bakery supply warehouses. "Butter-cream" icing means gobs of vegetable fat flavored with artifical butter flavoring, artificial color, and lots of sugar. Cake flour and fillings are equally un-inspired. This is not only cheaper for the bakery but it insures consistency in the products--each cake they produce is as un-interesting as the last one. How many weddings have you been to where people avoid the cake or take a small piece and never return for seconds?

A refreshingly modern trend has been to make everything from scratch. Surprisingly, we found that only a few bakeries avoid the mass-produced ingredients and make everything from scratch. This can be risky, because the cost of the ingredients can go up sharply after the order for the cake has been placed, and because it is more labor intensive and costs the bakery much more. But the difference between fresh and mass-produced ingredients is like night and day. If you have a cake made from fresh fruits, real butter, the best imported chocolates, and fresh dairy milk and cream--you will never forget the taste--and neither will your guests.

Here are a few bakeries that actually do this:

There are certainly others in the U.S., but they are as yet unknown to the reviewers of this website.

Cake Decorations

Rolled fondant has a matte finish resembling porcelain. It makes great bows and ribbons, but bear it mind that it doesn't taste as good as it looks. It cuts like chewing gum and caterers hate it. Royal icing dries very hard, so it produces delicate and long-lasting decorations. It is also barely edible. It is best to have your server remove the decorations from the cake and not serve them. Gum paste can be used for realistic reproductions of fruit, flowers, and bows, but it is also not very tasty. Fresh flowers are more in style and look much prettier than paste flowers. If you aren't going to eat them, why bother with paste? A better choice for the groom's cake is to have strawberries double-dipped in white and dark chocolate. These look fantastic and taste even better!




How clean is the Bakery?

These days, health and communicable diseases are a real issue. Commercial bakeries are inspected regularly by the health department and have to meet state and local codes and regulations. If the cake is made by someone working out of their home, inspect the corners while you are there. Do they have cats? Dogs? Children? There is a very good reason why the Board of Health does their inspections. One inspector we talked to told us that he takes the temperature of the milk in the bakery and looks for openings in doorways where bugs could get in. The list of problems he showed us caused by warm milk (used in icing, which is not subjected to high temperatures) and bugs was staggering! If a baker won't show you where the cakes are baked, you better look elsewhere!

Get it in writing!

Do they offer a written proposal? You should get a detailed contract. Your wedding day is one of the most important days of your life. Shouldn't it be as important as buying a house?

Order more than you think you need!

An important note--this only applies to the cakeries that make everything from scratch. If you serve a scratch-cake at your wedding, your guests will come back for seconds and thirds! You will hear about the cake from your guests for months afterward. If you order from a regular bakery, it doesn't really matter because your cake won't have this effect. Bakeries that normally make doughnuts and coffee-cakes don't make their wedding cakes from scratch. Where did you think all that old dry white wedding cake came from? Following is a list of local tri-state cakeries that make cake to die for! (Please note that these are not paid ads and in many cases the bakery owners may not even know that they have been listed here.)

Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky area Wedding Cake Bakeries:

  • Doebler's Bakery in Dayton, Ohio.
  • Brenda's Cakes in Indianapolis, Indiana.
  • Marry...Cakes and More Louisville , KY Phone: 502-905-0418
  • Culinary Creations by K, Inc. Prospect , Kentucky 40059 Phone: 502-292-3229
  • OASIS GIFTS & CAKES RADCLIFF , Kentucky 40160 Phone: 270-352-1131
  • Sugarplums Cake Decorating Tyner, Kentucky Phone: 606-287-2253
  • Louisville Wedding Cake Unique cakes and dessert catering by Leah Stewart, Pastry Chef in Louisville, Kentucky.
  • The Gallery House in Louisville, Kentucky.

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