Decorated with edible 24-karat gold, this dreamy creation was inspired by a cake at a celebrity wedding. (Special to The Packet)

Fantasy wedding cakes are beautiful tiers of joy
By MARIA C. HUNT
Copley News Service

For most couples, a wedding cake is as integral a part of the day they exchange marriage vows as the rings or the white gown. Just like tossing the bouquet, cutting the cake is an expected part of the festivities. The cake fits the bill as long as it is big and white, maybe with some frosting flowers and little bride and groom figurines on top.

But some brides are opting for fantasy cakes that embody their hopes and dreams for their wedding day and married life. Rather than traditional wedding icons, these cakes are personal symbols that reflect the lifestyles and personalities of the people they're created for.

Would your dream cake be snowy smooth with a cascade of white chocolate roses, or would it match exactly the French lace and seed-pearl pattern in the wedding dress? How about a 4-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower made from crocquembouche, or a beach-themed cake covered with iridescent shells?

Confronted with requests like these, a commercial baker might laugh or quote a price that would cause tears. But a handful of specialty pastry chefs and cake designers use forms of sugar like gum paste, fondant icing or pastiallage to make these cakes. Their skill allows brides everywhere to have the kind of cakes commonly seen at high-end weddings in New York or San Francisco. Often, these cake artists create their works entirely from scratch, so the cakes taste as good as they look.

"Brides seek us out because the mainstream bakeries aren't providing what they want," said Loree Luther, pastry chef and owner of All in Good Taste in San Diego. "I hear, 'I want my cake to be different. I don't want it to be like every other cake.'"

A PERSONAL STATEMENT

Josephine Piraino knew she had to have an extraordinary cake on the day she wed Steve Chave. As a cake decorator for a grocery store, Piraino felt her cake would reflect on her both personally and professionally.

"The details were so important to me," said Piraino, 25. "I just had a vision in my mind and went from there. I wanted mine (my cake) to be different and reflect me."

She found what she was looking for in a magazine, sort of. The cake created for Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick was a five-tiered blue, purple and green affair accented by iridescent pearl trim and bright-gold swags, star bursts and flowers on the icing.

Piraino loved the ornate design, but not the colors. She hired Fernando Viveros of Crumbs of Paris, in El Cajon, Calif., to create a similar cake in her wedding colors of white and gold. She chose him because she loved the taste of his cakes, and the prices were the most reasonable she could find. His prices per serving start at $1.75 and can climb to $25, depending on how elaborate the cake is and whether it uses lots of gold. A cake like Piraino's would cost $2,500 to $3,000.

Viveros, whose experience includes architectural school and culinary classes in London and at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, said the cake wasn't easy. Rather than make an exact replica of the one in the magazine, he borrowed some elements and created a whole new cake.

He used rolled fondant icing brushed with iridescent edible powders to give the cake a satin finish. He created swags from gum paste painted with edible 24-karat gold and made raised curlicues with royal icing. The whole thing was topped with cream, peach and lavender roses. The cake inside was white chocolate truffle with white chocolate mousse and chocolate chips.

If a bride doesn't have an idea, Viveros does a detailed interview to help figure out what kind of cake to create. He often starts by asking where the wedding is and what the dress looks like.

"Women are always happy to describe their dress, and they give me all those details," Viveros said. "It's really great because they not only have a nice cake, but they have something that shows somehow who they are."

More typical styles for Viveros include oval Victorian cakes with lace-patterned trims, or elaborate all-white cakes adorned with tiny clusters of fruit and flowers or covered with tiny squiggles called Cornelli lace.

His artistry has brought him interesting requests, such as for a lighthouse wedding cake, a Flintstones cake that was an embarrassing surprise for the bride's mother, and one from a well-to-do man who wanted a medieval castle, complete with turrets, his family crest and candy stained-glass windows.

"He said, 'I'm a very wealthy man, and I want my cake to reflect that,'" Viveros said.

EMPHASIS ON ELEGANCE

Luther, a graduate of the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, specializes in simply elegant designs. Her cakes often feature draped bows, ribbons or flowers like calla lilies or roses made of white modeling chocolate.

"Every bride is different, and we have so many different edible materials to work with nowadays," said Luther. "They're being a little bit more adventurous these days."

When Luther goes on cake consultations, she takes a large binder filled with lots of pictures. Flipping through the pages, bride-to-be Candace Flynn liked the pale-blue seashell cake with iridescent white shells, starfish and pearls because her fiance loves the beach. But she was also drawn to a smooth four-layer buttercream-frosted cake with rows and rows of roses separating the layers.

Flynn had lots of questions: what pastel colors are popular? What flavors do people like best? Luther patiently answered them all, even offering advice on other details unrelated to the wedding cake.

Luther also prides herself in making everything she uses on the cakes -- from the lemon curd to the chocolate mousse filling to the fondant icing -- from scratch. She also offers unusual flavors, like banana cake with a bittersweet Belgian chocolate truffle, a Swedish princess cake with vanilla pastry cream and fresh raspberry preserves, or a spice cake.