Vendor Review - Linda's Cakery

Our cake was not something we'd planned on.  During our first meeting with David (coordinator extraordinaire from JDK), he asked us about the cake.  We weren't sold on having a cake-cake.  I always thought the tradition of cutting the cake was so weird - nobody really wants to stand around and watch people cut cake.  We considered cupcakes, but I felt like cupcakes were so trendy (not just in wedding world, but in the real world, in general).  So David suggested doing a display of petits-fours on sticks.  Like Cake Pops (which I've totally made and are absolutely freaking awesome)!  We loved the idea.  So began our search for a bakery who would be willing/able to do this.  I must have contacted about 10 bakeries, and each time I was told they couldn't do it, or it was out of our budget.  Finally, I got in touch with Linda at Linda's Cakery.  She said she could do it for about $1.50 per petit-four.  Banking on about 150 people, 2 pops each, we were looking at $450.  Well within our budget!  We made an appointment to meet with her to see what she could do. 

When we got to her bakery (the basement of her home), we were less-than-pleased with what we saw.  The petits-fours were enormous (about 3x3x3", not 1x1x1" like we'd been picturing, and they were covered in a messy chocolate ganache rather than a nice smooth fondant.  They looked majorly W.T. and we were hugely disappointed.  Luckily, Linda herself admitted they looked terrible and said that she realized she couldn't do what we asked.  Again, hugely disappointed, but really glad for her honesty.  She asked if wanted to look through samples of her previous work.  At this point, I was just anxious to make a decision about the cake, so we said sure.  We ended up really liking with this one design, and after discussing our colors and such with her, we came up with a good plan for a cake. 

Based on our estimated guest list, we ordered a 3-tier cake plus a 1/2 sheet cake.  We tasted several different flavors, and ultimately ended up choosing 3: chocolate with peanut butter filling, french vanilla with raspberry ganache, and pink champagne with strawberry whip filling.  Each would be covered in white chocolate buttercream.  After telling Linda our colors (navy blue, peacock teal, apple green, and brown), she suggested marbling the colors together in order to make it more interesting.  OK, so if you remember, this was our inspiration picture:

(source)

Here is what we ended up with:

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(photo from my mom)

LOVE!  Not only did Linda make a beautiful cake, but it tasted amazing, as well.  And JDK did a great job with adding the flowers/feathers.  We ended up with just the 3 tiers - 2 pink champagne and 1 french vanilla.  We cancelled the 1/2 sheet cake because our guest list ended up being smaller than we'd anticipated.  Initially Linda gave us a hard time about cancelling it - she thought that we would run out of cake.  I spoke to David, though, and he assured me that it would be enough.  

Looking back, I wish I would've taken Linda's advice so that we could have saved the top tier.  We really didn't want to save the top tier, because it sounds just gross, but my sister and her husband also had JDK and she said they wrapped it so well that it still tasted fresh on their year anniversary.  Oh well.  We still plan to go out and have a wonderful dinner with a beautiful dessert.  And I'm actually considering ordering a tiny cake from Linda to surprise Matt for our one-year anniversary.  

In the end, I would definitely recommend Linda's Cakery.  She wasn't overtly friendly; in fact, I found her a bit brash.  But she made a beautiful, delicious cake, and we were really happy with the final product.  And the cost was perfect - well within our budget!