Cake Part I: Not all Cake is Created Equal

We went on our first cake tasting at Bredenbeck's Bakery. Though I have passed by Brendenbeck's thousands of times never considered them for our wedding cake until we came upon their booth at Chestnut Hill Day a couple of weeks ago. Their portfolio of cakes were beautiful and the clincher was they could lock us in at '08 prices. For the future Mister this sent him over the top.

Now I am somewhat of a cake snob and price is not the deal clincher. I want a cake that tastes FABULOUS! One that makes you feel like you have died and gone to heaven. So needless to say I was a little skeptical and really needed to get a taste before I said yea or nay.

So we went on a cake tasting this past Sunday. The staff there at Bredenbeck's are very helpful and friendly. The bakery storefront is extremely small so for the tasting they take you up to the third floor and it is a hike. But once up there you are in a room surrounded by beautiful cake models. They present you with a plate of different flavored pound cakes (Basic package, however basic layer cake is same price as traditional pound.)

(Clockwise from top raspberry swirl, lemon, traditional, chocolate chip pound)

I liked the traditional best while the future Mister loved the raspberry (one of their most popular).

Future Mister while eating his raspberry swirl

While the cake was good it was not Fantabulous. We asked about the layer cake and they provided us with one of their chocolate cupcakes to sample. It was somewhat dry and the pound cake was clearly better. Their pricing of $3.75 a serving is very reasonable and a cake for a wedding our size would be about ~$200. (I talked to another bakery and they have cautioned that like all other food items flour has gone up in price which may drive up the cost of baked goods. So be warned for 09 at any bakery!) I loved the fact that Laura our tasting consultant was good at listening to our design ideas and made great suggestions about sizing. Since we want the look of a three tiered cake and that would clearly be too much for our wedding party, she suggested a dummy tier made out of styrofoam which they could execute with butter cream or fondant icing.

They clearly had beautiful designs, however, I was just not won over by their taste. So the hunt continues.


Here is a link to their website.

http://www.bredenbecks.com/weddings.php

Their online album does not do justice to the work they are capable of, the sample cakes at the tasting were gorgeous. (Sorry no shots! What was I thinking.) I suggest if you like a good traditional pound cake and care more about the look rather than the taste then they are a great choice.