Bake me a Cake!

I've posted about cake before. It's not anywhere near the top of my priority list. So long as it tastes delish, I'm good. My dear old grandma made me promise not to get a grocery store cake. I think her exact words were, "Don't chintz on the cake!" Moments later, she offered to pay for it. Despite her generosity, I was still determined to keep the cake reasonable. After contacting several brides who have been married at our venue, the overwhelming recommendation was for a bakery in the small town of Woodland. Timothy's bakery is much closer to the venue than any of the Sacramento bakeries and has a great reputation. Apparently Tim is the only "certified master baker" in the area.

our samples

Last weekend, my bridesmaid K took a break from her life as a medical student in Ohio to visit me. I made an appointment at Timothy's for Friday morning, and we headed there for some extra sweet breakfast. There's no denying Woodland is a small town, and being in the bakery is like stepping back in time. The air is dense with sugar and the people are refreshingly casual and helpful.

Timothy's is known for their champagne cake, but unfortunately it is too light and airy for a stacked wedding cake. We tried it anyway. It was good, but I wasn't dying over it. Their white cake was really good, nice and moist and dense. We also tried their applesauce cake just for the fun of it. It definitely tasted like a muffin, so good.

This is what the simple edging will look like. source

While I had mostly brought in pictures of 3-tier cakes, when we looked at the crazy-cheap prices (compared to any Sacramento baker) we began to toy with the idea of a fourth tier. Timothy's wife helped me to articulate exactly what I loved about the four pictures I had brought in to show her. She definitely understood what I liked and what I didn't like, and we wound up ordering a 4 tier butter cream with dotted edging. She customized the size of each tier after noticing that I preferred to have each tier be very close in size, rather than having several inches difference. With the 4 tiers we will have more than enough cake to feed the entire crew.

This is the best picture of my favorite 4 tier cake. This is when she noticed that I liked my tiers to be very close in size. I love it! Source

The best part is, I told K before we went in that I was trying to keep the cake at $400. After adding the fourth tier, tinkering with the measurements and adding a fresh strawberry filling, the grand total? $399. Yeah for being under budget!