Cakes and Desserts

To cake or not to cake?  That is the question.

Sounds lame, I know.  But this has been at the forefront of my wedding planning madness lately.  For those of you who may not be in the know or planned a wedding in recent years, the cost of wedding cakes is astronomical to say the least.  Sure, your baker will try and (ironically) sweeten it up for you--saying it's only $2.50-$4.00 a slice.  You think to yourself (for a brief moment)--Ok, well, I'd pay that in a restaurant or as a treat at a bakery.  Not too bad--could be worse.

And then you remember your guest list has 100 people.

Holy crap.

That my friends, suddenly becomes a dessert worth a car payment, a month's worth of groceries (or more), or (in my case) more than my wedding dress.

And remember, that while the pictures will of course, live on--this cake will be around for about seven hours.  If it sucks.  I don't want to think about how much that cake is worth in a dollars-to-minutes ratio.

There I was, freaking out.  I'm not paying that.  I won't.

And then a lightbulb went off--I could bake it myself.

For those of you that might not know, I'm an amateur baker.  Amateur being the key word, I've still been known to put out some impressive baked yummies from time to time.  But in my limited layered-cake experience let me tell you... Those suckers are tough!  I never even considered doing the good old-fashioned all-white three round layers.  Way too easy destroy/burn/drop/annihalate, etc. et. al.  About a zillion scenarios of me crying in my wedding dress--cake covered or no--being to play in my head.  On repeat.

But... cupcakes are in.  They're hot.  Everyone's having them at their wedding--Rebecca Romijn, Carrie Underwood, Donald Trump, the list goes on.  And they're not so bad on a baker.  Sure, I'd have to decorate... 100+ cupcake tops.  But there's little to no chance of it not getting enough rise, sinking, sagging, tipping over, falling over, getting fallen into or jumped through... Literally, I've had nightmares.

But I've also read articles that just suggest that it might not be cheaper in the end, or at least, as cheap as you think.  I set out to at least make an honorable attempt.

On my shelf here, I am now the proud owner of 500 Cupcakes, described as "the only cupcake compendium you'll ever want or need."  Now, that has yet to be determined (I need a solid paycheck before I can rush out and get all the bulk materials I'll need to get a crystal clear idea of how much each cupcake would be worth) but it's a least a good book to leaf-through.  We're talking everything from Vanilla yuzu to Triple Fudge.  It even has a decent muffin section (the owner couldn't decide if he'd offend anyone by excluding the oft-devoured 'breakfast' cupcake).

Before I get started on the test-kitchen phase (much to my roommates and besties eager anticipation).  I want to get some feedback...

What kind of cake do you guys want to eat?

I'm really turned onto the Curry Chocolate recipe, Pistachio, and Pineapple-coconut flavors, and I have half a mind to just throw caution to the wind in favor of these three flava-flavs (oh yeah, I did).  But.. I want to know what you think!

Other close contenders:
Pomegranate Sponge-cake with vanilla sugar topping
Pumpkin cupcakes with Cream cheese frosting
Grand Marnier with Vanilla bean frosting and raspberry filling

Out,
-L