With popular food shows like Cake Wars and Sugar Rush, everyone has become familiar with amazing bakers and their glorious desserts. So, imagine what is happening in the world of wedding cakes.
If you’ve attended a wedding recently, you may have noticed wedding cakes defy all expectations. Gone is the simple round-tiered cake topped with a plastic bride and groom. These days, wedding cakes are modern masterpieces in all shapes and sizes, featuring intricate designs and flavors.
Pastry chefs from ALHI hotels and resorts shared what goes into creating memorable and delicious wedding cakes for a couple’s special day.
Inspired by the Seasons
Who wouldn’t want their wedding cake carefully crafted and baked by an award-winning French pastry chef? Well, at the Hotel Bennett, in Charleston S.C., you can get just that. Executive Pastry Chef Remy Funfrock of the property’s La Pâtisserie cafe, hails from Lyon, France, and moved to the U.S nearly 30 years ago. He has worked at Michelin-star restaurants in New York and resorts all over the country, then finally found his home at Hotel Bennett. The chef, who claims that sugar was his first love, approaches wedding cakes as works of art, making each one a reflection of the couple’s story.
When he’s not looking to the couples for ideas, Chef Remy’s inspiration comes from nature.
“I like to listen to the season when I bake these cakes,” he said. “For example, in the spring I like to have vanilla with fresh raspberries.”
For the outside of the cake, Chef Remy has been known to use rice paper when the couple is looking for a thin and elegant cake. The rice paper makes the cake flowy. Fondant is used to make tiers or columns on cakes to give the cake a nice creamy look with a strong foundation. For couples who love their pets, Chef Remy has even indulged couples by adding the couple’s best four-legged friend—their dog—on a cake or as a party favor.
A Wedding Cake with a Veil
The setting for weddings at Nobu Hotel Los Cabos in Mexico is already dramatic: sunsets in orange, yellow and pink serve as a backdrop to go with the piquant gastronomic delights. The wedding cake is the cherry on top.
“I work closely with the couple to design a cake that’s completely personalized and meaningful to them,” said Chef, or pastelera, Brenda Terrones.
She said couples almost always come with their own ideas. The process usually begins with a conversation about the couple’s vision, favorite flavors and any inspiration they might have. From the wedding theme and décor to personal stories or special memories, that is all part of the conversation. From there, Chef Brenda creates sketches and flavor suggestions to bring that vision to life.
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One of the cakes that I am most proud of is one that looks like it has a brides veil,” she said. “The couple gave me the inspiration for the veil, but I had to use my creativity and imagination—like making the veil out of rice paper to make sure the end product was something the couple had envisioned. It was very satisfactory to see the results.”
The flexibility of the rice paper enabled Chef Brenda to create the veil look and the desired effect.
“The couple and their guests loved it,” she said.
Tell us Your Story and We’ll Make the Cake
Executive Chef Jess Bingham of the four-diamond resort Caribe Royale Orlando has been dreaming about making pastries since she was a little girl. She was in such a hurry to get started making these cake delights that she attended culinary school and high school at the same time.
She said the cake-making process begins when the couple goes in for a visit. Chef Jess offers three kinds of cakes that couples can mix and match. Then, like a therapist, Chef Jess delves into the couple’s background, where they met, all the way to why they settled on Caribe Royale Orlando as a wedding location.
“With that information, we can really create something beautiful for them,” she added. Most memorable for her is the couple who saved wine corks from all their special dinner dates. Chef Jess found a way to incorporate those wine corks as a decoration on the cake. Then there’s the couple whose first date was at a restaurant called The Kraken. The couple gave her full creative freedom. Chef Jess came back with a ship. The couple loved it.
“Here at Caribe Royale, we love what we do, and we love bringing a couple’s story to life,” said Director of Marketing Suzanne Stephan.
Why Hire a Hotel Chef for the Most Important Cake of Your Life
All three chefs agree: It’s the freshness.
“I bake the cake the day before the wedding and then I build the cake very early in the morning and finish by two,” Chef Remy said. “The freshness in the cake is incomparable to anything else you can have around town. I don’t want to sound cocky, but it’s the truth.”
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