Wedding Trend: Cupcakes

Cupcakes are a big trend for weddings, birthdays and other special events.  Some of the main pros to this choice are:

• Allows you to offer your guest a variety of flavors.
• One of the great advantages to cupcakes is being able to serve a complete tiny dessert, such as creme brulee, carrot cake with cream cheese icing, or tiramisu.  They are also easily tailored to the season, such as pumpkin with cream cheese icing in the fall, red velvet for Valentine's Day or chocolate with peppermint buttercream and candy cane garnish in the winter. 
• Cupcakes are self-serve, so no need for utensils, plates, or waitstaff.
• This can sometimes be a cost savings if your venue charges to cut and serve cake.
• Can easily be color coordinated or decorated to match a wide variety of themes.
• The sky is the limit when decorating cupcakes,  They can range from simple, elegant, and monochromatic, to colorful, load, and customized with flowers or figures to match the theme of an event.  Think summer flower garden (cupcakes decorated with hydrangeas and rose), fall harvest (pumpkins, mums, and sunflowers), or a baby jungle theme for a baby shower or birthday party.
• Cupcakes are nostalgic and fun!
• Cupcakes bring back sweet memories of your favorite bakery, cooking with your family, and after school treats.
• Cupcakes can be displayed in many ways and used as a part of the decoration of the event.
• Cupcakes can be set out at each place setting, clustered on a pedestal or plate in the center of each table, displayed on a cupcake stand or tower, or included as part of a dessert buffet.  You can even have a cupcake themed dessert table complete with different flavors.  Another fun idea would be a cupcake "bar."   Guests could choose from a variety of cakes flavors, fillings, icings, and decorations to create their own custom cupcake.
• Cupcakes make a great serving size, and provide your guests with a small but sweet treat.

Wedding Trend: Groom's Cakes

Groom's cakes are becoming increasingly popular. They are a nice nod to the groom from the bride:

• The flavor of the groom's cake can be customized to meet the groom's tastes. We get requests for everything from chocolate decadence, to peanut butter buttercream, to carrot and cheesecake.
• The design of the cake can be tailored to the groom's unique and masculine interests (I see the bride in tasting after tasting wanting the groom to contribute his design ideas...while many a groom gladly participates in choosing the cake, it is unlikely they have been dreaming of it since kindergarten!). We have done hunting themes, sports themes/logos, Star Wars, and fireman's hats to name a few. Anything that is near and dear to the groom.

Groom's cakes are traditionally served at the reception, but we think it is a nice touch to serve it at the rehearsal dinner. The day of the wedding is full of so much, while the rehearsal is usually a smaller more intimate affair. The bride will have time to present the cake to her groom, and they can enjoy the moment. Further, since the groom's cake is usually much smaller it can provide a nicely sized dessert at the rehearsal.
For more information on Groom's Cakes, see this link to the WeddingChannel.com.

Wedding Trend: Dessert Buffets

In a trend away from the traditional tiered wedding cake, many brides and grooms are opting for dessert buffets. This choice has many advantages and is a nice alternative to traditional cake.

• Cater to a wide variety of tastes and preferences. We suggest including some traditional "cake," whether in the form of an actual cake slice or a mini cupcake, something for chocolate lovers (a rich brownie or a chocolate mousse cup), something light (such as a miniature fruit tart), something rich (like a cheesecake bite), and something for those who do not like chocolate (such as a pecan pie bar or lemon bar).
• Personalize your dessert menu by including favorites of the bride and groom, or favorites of family members.
• Allow your guests to enjoy dessert at their own pace throughout the event.
  

When considering a dessert buffet, you can forgo traditional cake all together, or incorporate a smaller presentation cake into the buffet. This way you can preserve tradition and offer variety.

When planning your buffet, consider the type of reception you are having. For instance, if you are having heavy hor d'oeuvres and then a dessert buffet, we would suggest allowing 2-3 pieces per person. Similarly, if you are having a heavier dinner, but then a long reception, you may also want to plan on 2-3 pieces per person, as people may graze after dinner and on throughout the night. Alternatively, if you are having a luncheon or a heavy dinner, then you may plan for fewer servings, such as 1.5-2 pieces per person.

Iron Cupcake Milwaukee -- Bacon

On Monday I participated in Iron Cupcake Milwaukee, a monthly local cupcake contest. Each month a theme is chosen and bakers, both professional and amateur (I use the term amateur here lightly, as you will see!), compete to create the best tasting cupcake using that theme. For a bargain price of $7 attendees can sample all of these offerings and then vote for the cupcake they think has the best flavor and also the entrant with the best presentation.

This month's theme was bacon....that's right, bacon! I was completely amazed and blown away at the creativity, thoughtfulness, and incredibly detail and labor that people put into their entries. The winning cupcake was painstakingly created by taking tiny circles of cake and layering them on a toothpick with bananas, peanut butter, and bacon, and was inspired by Elvis's favorite sandwich. Genius! And delicious! Another great idea was a play off of rumaki (bacon covered chicken livers). This "cupcake" was wrapped in bacon and although I didn't get a chance to taste it I heard buzz about it all night. Yet another favorite was a BLT cupcake that would make a great appetizer. It was a slightly sweet tomato cake topped with a mayonnaise butter cream and sprinkled with bacon and lettuce (and was created by a trio of cute young men dressed in coordinating black tuxes with pink satin bows, who ended up winning for best presentation)

I chose to participate to challenge myself to step outside the box of what I normally would make for the bakery. After several failed attempts (a bacon corn muffin with fig preserves and fig goat cheese butter cream, an apple cupcake with caramel butter cream and bacon toffee) I settled on a bacon cupcake with a blackberry jam schmear, vanilla butter cream and bacon toffee.

Second to the creativity and inspiration of the other bakers, the highlight of the evening for me was being able to see a cake from Bleeding Heart Bakery in Chicago that was presented to Iron Cupcake creator and founder Sandy Ploy in honor of her birthday. The owners of the bakery have competed on Food Network cake challenges and it was amazing to see there work up close and have a taste!

I am so intrigued by the custom people figures and definitely have that on my list of things to learn this year. What a fun and inspiring night! Who knew that bacon and cupcakes could bring so many people together? Next month's challenge is "Curry".......

Cupcake Segment on Fox 6 Wakeup!

We were invited to present a segment on cupcakes on the Fox 6 Wakeup Morning Show. What fun! But how does one condense all of one's enthusiasm and vast knowledge of cupcakes into 3 minutes?? I bet I could do a different 3 minute segment on cupcakes every week for a year!

Here is the first one:



Much thanks to Nicole Koglin and the rest of the Wake Up team. They were fun, witty, and put me at ease. Plus they kept saying the cupcakes smelled so good and started calling dibs on which ones they wanted. That makes a baker's day!

Keep an eye out for our new cupcake menu...coming soon!

Wedding Cake Trends 2010

If June and October are the most popular wedding months, then January is by far the biggest wedding planning month. So far this month we have logged in about 7-10 tastings per week. It is a dizzy-ing flurry of wedding cake planning overload! Fun though!

These are the trends we are seeing for 2010:

• Traditional tiered wedding cakes are still the favorite of the majority of our customers. The trends within this category are simple and elegant designs, fresh flowers, square tiers, and color.
• Unique Wedding Cake Flavors that go beyond the traditional. We are seeing an increase in requests for flavors such as tiramisu, strawberry shortcake, pumpkin and red velvet. For example, using flavor combinations such as yellow cake, vanilla buttercream, and fresh strawberries recreates the flavors of strawberry shortcake and provides guests with a classy flavorful cake and dessert.
• Sheet cake! In this economic climate everyone is concerned with keeping costs down but maintaining a high level of quality and service. Almost 100% of weddings with greater that 150 people are opting for smaller presentation cakes with sheet cake to make up the balance of the servings.
• Cupcakes are hot! Not only are they incredibly trendy right now, they are also economical and provide a lot of options for set-up, display, and serving.
• Individual cakes at each table are also a popular choice. They can serve double duty as both center piece and dessert.
• Dessert buffets with individual bite size desserts.
• Groom's cakes are gaining in popularity, whether as a dessert at the rehearsal dinner or as an additional cake at the reception.

Stay tuned for future posts detailing each of these trends!

Happy Thanksgiving!

'Tis the season to think about being grateful. I can truly say that I am so grateful for the bakery. One thing that continues to amaze me is the kindness and thoughtfulness of my customers. I am lucky enough to have the kind of customers that take the time to send me thank you's via lovely hand written cards, e-mails, and phone messages. These "thank you's" mean the world to me and are so appreciated. No matter how old you get or how confident you may become it NEVER gets old to hear that you have met someone's expectations and that they were happy with your work. These comments make my day and I am thankful that people take the time to pass these kind words on to me.

A few months ago (will time ever slow down?) I posted a blog about the frustrations of being a business owner. I have had so many great things happen lately; so many random, great things and I wanted to be sure to give even coverage to the good! One is that some of our cake pictures will be featured on the Better Homes and Gardens website. More details on this to come once the pictures are up and running. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also contacted us about displaying some of our wedding cake pictures on one of their websites and we are excited to see how that turns out. In addition, we were recently contacted by Wisconsin Bride Magazine and told that we will be mentioned in the Spring/Summer 2010 issue since we were the cake vendor for an wedding they are featuring. Lots of positive fun stuff to be thankful and grateful for! Stay tuned for more details as all of these things develop. Wishing you a safe and happy Thanksgiving!