Let them eat cake!

{cake!}

Well, yesterday was Easter with Adam's family...and after stuffing our faces with ham, potatoes, broccoli casserole, and "bunny-rolls," Adam and I got to do our official cake-testing! 

Adam's aunt, Cheryl, kindly offered to make our wedding cake. Seeing as cake-making has been a profession of hers for 27 years (her first creation being her own wedding cake!), and she is family, we couldn't turn down the offer. 

A few posts back I had expressed my desire for cupcakes---I loved the look of the cupcake tree, and enjoyed the cute'ness of just-right eating portions, but was told cupcakes were too much work. So Adam and I, despite being the not-too-into-cake people that we are, decided to just go the easy route and opt for a friggin' cake. Being all together at Aunty Cheryl's place yesterday made it the perfect time to talk about the numerous possibilities, our likes / dislikes, check out Cheryl's photo albums o' cakes she has made in the past,  and decide which flavor we'd most enjoy. 

Decided a three-tier cake is as big as we wanna go----the bottom layer being 12" in diameter, the second layer being 8" and the third layer being 6". Also made it quite clear that we're not big on frosting and do NOT want big glob'like roses, trim, etc. Looking to have a nice, clean-looking cake; simple. Less is more, after all. Maybe a little dot-frosting border, maybe an orange ribbon.....still searching for pictures o' inspiration. 

One thing that is for certain: we shall be stuffing delicious lemon'y goodness into our faces come our wedding night! I had immediately dismissed the basic vanilla, chocolate, or marble cake options because....well....those options are boring, and very birthday party'esque. So we tried the following:

*Carrot Cake--yummy; thick; moist; lots of texture. I liked it, but wasn't sure about having it as a wedding cake. Plus it had a lot of different ingredients in it, including carrots (duh), spices, and shards of coconut. "Less is more" is obviously one of my favorite mantras, and this cake didn't quite fit in.

* Spice Cake--very yummy; reminded me of autumn / Thanksgiving. I wouldn't have minded having this as our cake, but Adam liked the carrot cake better than this one, and the overall thing was that it was much more of a autumnal choice. If we were having a wedding in, say, October, then we perhaps would have gone with this one.

*Lemon Cake--delicious; light and summery; had the right amount of tangy and sweet. Plus it's yellow, so it matches. Ha! This is the winner!!!

Have your just desserts....

Adam and I haven't made a concrete decision in regards to the cake / dessert issue. We know we "need" a cake to cut because, well, tradition says so...and Adam's aunt makes cakes for a living, so she's already offered to make ours....and it would probably disappoint many a'family member and guest if we didn't have a cake.....

SO! 

Cake it is...but a *small* cake, please. Nothin' super-duper fancy with 50 tiers and pounds of frosting (bleh---I hate cake frosting). Adam and I aren't big cake-fans to begin with....but maybe we can do what our newlywed friends did and have a tasty chocolate-peanut butter cake---yummmm!! If it's got peanut butter in it, I'll eat it. 

So, because we don't want a giant cake, we are of course considering the option of having lil' cupcakes as dessert for our guests. It's not that we're trying to avoid a cake-cutting fee (because there isn't one at our fabulous venue to begin with!)----we just don't care to have a GIANT FLIPPIN' CAKE! Besides, cupcakes are cute, fun, inexpensive, and in my opinion no one NEEDS a heaping slice of cake, ever. Cupcakes are the perfect size to satisfy any sweet tooth. If we decide to go with the cupcake option, I've had the crazy daydream of making 'em myself (with the help of my bridesmaids of course!) because it'd be kinda fun to slave over the oven for a day, baking and decorating...all the while drinking wine, of course. There are a few daunting factors that come into play, however: 
a) I don't enjoy cooking or baking because I'm afraid I'll mess it up and possibly poison the people I love
b) That's gonna be a LOT of cupcakes....like, 150'ish if everybody we invite RSVP's with a "Heck yes!" 
c) If we were to make them 2 days before the wedding, would they keep well?

There are *so* many cupcake ideas out there....as well as cupcake tree designs! NOTE: I didn't know they were called "cupcake trees" until recently; I called it a tower ("pffft! a 'tower?!' what a dumb bride-to be, doesn't even know what that thing is called").  ;o)  I like the one to the right (------>) because it's rustic and looks hand-made; definitely something my dad could whip out in about 20 minutes! It would be rustic and obviously fitting for our venue, but also something I would keep and treasure as another awesome thing my dad has made for us. This particular design is cute, too, because it's modest----not some giant Christmas-tree sized tower o' cupcakes. Why not just have a fraction of the cupcakes out for display, and the rest "behind-the-scenes" in the kitchen...? Unless there's not enough room for 100 cupcakes in the kitchen, I would prefer not to have all 150+ cupcakes out and about 'cuz that would require a large-and-in-charge cupcake tree, by golly!!

The lil' birds on top of these cupcakes were handmade by a bride and her maid of honor and I think they are just so cute! They're made of felt and have simple stitching, and can basically be made in any color you so desire. Sewing felt is no problem, though this would be a time consuming and tedious---no one ever said being a DIY bride was an easy task! "Birds" as a theme has really grown in popularity over the past few years, and while I'm not one for being cliche, I do enjoy how these little birds  embody the simple country / indie wedding vibe. We obviously won't be going with "birds" as our entire wedding theme, though birds ARE a part of nature and we DO have an old fashioned birdcage as our card holder, so I see no problem with incorporating some birdies here and there... 

The next topper options I find hilarious and just as creative: ------>
The bride who employed this idea found the plastic figurines at a party store, and they fit well with their theme because they married on Halloween. These are great because they are cheap, easy (ya just stick it on top---done!), and show the couple's sense of humor / youthfulness. I dig that. A sense of humor is so important, and why not make cupcakes fun?? Even if you're not getting hitched on Halloween, there's no reason not to spruce up your foods with a little creativity.

One of these days Adam and I will seriously discuss the issue at hand: what the heezy do we serve for dessert?
Follow tradition and have a monstrous cake? 
Offer little cupcakes instead of slices of cake? 
Nix the cake-thing all together and offer ice cream sundaes?! 
Or maybe a cup of fruit?! 
Or how about we nix the dessert thing all together and offer Kashi granola?!? (kidding about the last option)