Ten Desserts Are Better Than One

Who’s up for a cake break? I want to take a little hiatus from sharing all the Save-the-Date details to talk about our plan for desserts. I can’t share too many planning details because, well… there hasn’t been any planning going on, since we’re not doing the traditional wedding cake thing.

Not that we don’t love sweets. I am an endless pit when it comes to dessert, and think no meal is complete without a sweet bite to finish it. My philosophy in life is basically the same as Buddy the Elf.

elfcandy
I Screen You Screen via Etsy

Mr. Rooster likes sweets, too, but he’s much more particular than I am. He loves ice cream and apple pie, but he isn’t a huge fan of cake. Roo also thinks frosting is the worst part of cake. What kind of monster am I marrying?

frostingshots
The Bleu Squid Bakery in Mystic, Conn., viaThe Distracted Wanderer

I could skip the cake, to be honest.

So on one hand you have a bride who likes cake but also likes a billion other sweets and thinks choosing a favorite dessert is like choosing a favorite child. On the other hand, there’s a groom who kinda hates cake. So why would we have a cake at our wedding?

Instead, we’re opting to have many different desserts. Cake will be part of it, I’m sure. But it will likely be a small cake; one tier, not three. Like what you’d serve at a birthday, but a heck of a lot more sophisticated. With a cute cake topper, obviously. I wouldn’t miss any chance for some extra whimsy.

onetiercake
Cake by Sugaree, Toppers by Potter & Butler, shot by Paper Antler via Style Me Pretty

A cake topper…. or ten.

Our small, sophisticated cake will possibly be a Publix grocery cake, if I get my way. I know many of you won’t understand, but can I get an “Amen!” from my fellow Floridians? Is it the chic choice? Not a chance. But cake from the local Publix bakery is like heaven on earth, with all that pillowy sweet frosting. I grew up eating Publix cake at every birthday and baby shower, and I couldn’t imagine serving cake at my wedding from anywhere else.

PublixCake
Publix

Publix cake. Second only to Publix subs.

In addition to the possibly-Publix cake, we want to serve a few other desserts. We’ve thrown out some ideas—like pie, brownies and macarons—but haven’t nailed anything down yet. I see “order the cake” staring me down on my wedding checklist, so I know we need to get to work soon. Until then, here’s what I know:

  • Everything will come from one place. We have a coordinator and many helpful friends, but I don’t want anybody (including me) spending the day of our wedding shuttling to three or four different bakeries or confectioneries to stock our dessert bar. I would love for everything to come from one place so we can make one trip, or possibly meet a minimum for delivery. The exceptions to this are anything that can be bought/made/delivered ahead of time (like Candy), and that damn Publix cake.
  • We’re planning for ten bites per person. We’ll have 90 people at the wedding, but that doesn’t mean we need 90 cupcakes and 90 macarons. We’re going to plan on everyone having 10 bites of dessert, so we need to stock about 900 bites total. I got the suggestion from this post on A Practical Wedding about self-catering a dessert reception, and while it sounds daunting, it’s really a good benchmark. A mini cupcake might be 1 bite, while a regular cupcake is 4. A slice of pie is probably a full 10 bites, so one pie could take care of 80 bites at once.
  • I am going to need a lot of stuff. I own five cake stands. That’s probably more than the average gal, but not nearly enough to set up a dessert bar. Everything else will need to be either bought, borrowed or rented. I’m keeping an eye out for cheap serving pieces when I’m out and about, but in the end I’ll probably rent some extra pieces from our wedding coordinator or the event rental company who’s stocking our tables and chairs. Thankfully, “mismatched” is proving to be somewhat of a theme for our wedding, so everything will look right at home no matter where it came from.

There’s a lot more to do and decide on the dessert front, and I’m sure I’ll have another update down the road once we decide on all the goods. Until then, I’ll take suggestions on what to serve. So… what’s your favorite dessert?

19. February 2014 by Taryn
Categories: Food & Drink | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

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