ottawa foodies

I am going to be getting married later this year and my fiancée and have started planning. We have decided that while definitely want the wedding cake to look good, we also want it to taste good and hopefully very good. So what vendors would people suggest?

Cheers?

I have to put a plug in for the person who did our wedding cake in July 2006: Jayne Argentina from Cucina Dolce: cucinadolce.ca/main.shtml

Very sweet person, great prices, works out of her home. :)

Joe Calabro at Pasticceria Gelateria Italiana at 200 Preston St. (613-233-2104) is a multiple award-winning pastry chef who specializes in wedding cakes, with decorations as elaborate as you can imagine. Very nice man, with exceptional workmanship and, of course, tasty treats.

Congrats to you!

I very highly recommend Homeland Bakery (www.homelandbakery.ca). The owner, Elisa Frost, went above and beyond and was so sweet! Her prices are low and her cakes are to die for!!! Wonderful buttercream frosting and portions are huge too. I recommend you call her quickly though, she's usually fully booked almost a year in advance.

We had two flavours, both from the upgraded menu - Death by Chocolate and Raspberry White Chocolate - both delicious! For 100 big portions (I'd say about 2" x 3") - $400.00; can't be beat!

Attached is a picture of our cake. You'll see we didn't go with something traditional - our wedding was smaller and we wanted the cake to be "fun" - but it was exactly what we requested. (One of two almost identical cakes (one had three tiers, the other had two) - we had two receptions. Our cake looks small but our topping was almost 10".)

Standard Menu

Cakes

Carrot
Chocolate
Coconut
Lemon
Marble
Mocha
Orange
Spice
Vanilla

Fillings

Chocolate Mousse
Citrus Cream
Raspberry Cream
Strawberry Cream
Cappuccino Cream
French Custard
Lemon
Orange
Vanilla Pudding

Upgraded Menu

Amaretto Vanilla cake with an Amaretto mousse filling.

Coconut Vanilla cake with shredded coconut and filled with coconut custard.

Death By Chocolate (Rich, German chocolate cake layered with Belgian chocolate ganache)

Hazelnut Frangelico (Chocolate cake soaked with Frangelico liqueur layered with hazelnut mousse filling)

Kahlua (Chocolate cake with Kahlua mousse filling and sliced dark chocolate shavings)

Raspberry White Chocolate (Vanilla cake with a layer of white chocolate mousse swirled with raspberry filling)

Cheesecake Menu

Original Supreme Cheesecake
Cappuccino Cheesecake
Chocolate Chip Cheesecake
Chocolate Truffle Cheesecake
Lemon Chiffon Cheesecake
Orange Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake
White Chocolate with field berries
Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake

Hope this helps!

fan of Artistic Cake Design, now on Merivale Rd

Artistic Cake Design

I'm getting married next year as well...although back in SK, not here! Congrats...
If I was doing it here, I would contact www.thegirlwiththemostcake.ca
She does the most detailed, artistic cakes you've ever seen, especially if you don't want to do the traditional thing. I believe there is a tag on here for her?? I might have even posted a picture. The one cake I had tried was a lemon cake with amazing butter cream icing! MMMMMM.....

Unfortunately, I can't recommend a cake artist, but I might agree with Food Lover just because I saw a wonderful cake that www.thegirlwiththemostcake.ca had featured just this week in Ottawa Magazine (page 59). Ottawa Magazine was celebrating it's 10th Anniversary, and the feature section started out with a cake that was made for the ocassion. Looked great! I would say the decorator was extremely talented.

Found this on the Frontpage of the Ottawa Magazine Website (only a partial pic, doesn't do the photo in the magazine justice). If you can find the magazine, check it out yourself.

Funny (and true) story time ... to do with our wedding cake.

My wife is from a really small community of a few hundred, and when we were getting married all the old women chipped in to take care of all the various aspects of the wedding, just like in the old days. My wife's mom got the job of making the cake, but when it came time to frost it she just couldn't get it right. So my father-in-law pipes in and makes a comment about how it can't be very hard - it's like drywalling. He has been a contractor all his life and by that point had over 20 years of experience doing that sort of thing. So sure enough MiL got frustrated enough with her own work and called his bluff and told him to go to it. He couldn't get very far with the cake-icer so he hauled out one if his big spackling (drywalling) knives, gave it a good scrubbing, and frosted the cake perfectly!

And so is the story of our wedding cake. One day it may be on Ripley's Believe it or Not - but I swear it's true!

That's why I totally dig The Girl With The Most Cake: not only is the stuff absolutely beautiful, but it actually tastes good, too.

If I were getting married in Ottawa I'd pay any price to get one of those. Since it's going to be in Hamilton, though, I'm at a loss on what to do.

The Girl with the Most Cake has a booth out at the Carp Farmers' Market (she was there at the recent Easter Saturday market) for anyone that wants to try a small cake out or wants to see them in person.

I'd also recommend checking out Stubbe's. We used them for my parents' 50th Wedding Anniversary (and countless birthdays). I'm sure they would do wedding cakes as well, depending on exactly what you're looking for.

I would also recommend The Girl with the Most Cake & Artistic Cake Design. They do completely different styles of cakes from one another, but both are great options. TGWTMC makes a great icing and delicious flavoured cake, though I sometimes (and I mean sometimes, not all the time) find the cake to be a little on the dry side, but not deal-breaker dry. Artistic Cake design has a moist cake, but the icing isn't as good as TGWTMC.

I love to pimp my 'cake'!

Jayne from Cucina Dolce made it. We both wanted pumpkin pie but wanted it to be a bit classier looking so this was made in a springform pan and the sides were reinforced with dark chocolate. The detail on top mirrored the design on all printed materials.

Also it was fan-f*&king-tabulous in taste. She made the main pie at 12" and then a bunch of smaller ones to be brought out from the kitchen. We had a couple left over after and they didn't last long.

The Girl with the Most Cake & Artistic Cake has truly delicious cakes. The drawback may be price--I have only purchased an 8" birthday cake and it was pricier than I forecast(had purchased the small 3 1/2" at the farmers market in Carp for about $10.) I haven't priced a wedding cake in too many years to remember but to serve 1-200 I think would be pricey--yet incredibly beautiful, moist & delicious! Good Luck!

Tiana I remember your cake from weddingbells! I have to second Sourberry's recommendation, because I had some of her cake and it was so good!

My cake lady was very nice and the prices were great but the cake itself was not all that I hoped it would be unfortunately.