Four letters with so much joy. Not L.O.V.E this time. Nope. It's all about C.A.K.E.With only two months to go to our big day (OMG sound the klaxon!), planning and prepping has gotten all stressful again. We have just booked the music, yay, and the invitations are kind of nearly all coming together which means stressy emails to collate all addresses, someone to write said addresses on envelopes and then lots of stamp buying and licking. But the diamond in the rough of all the madness is the cake. The one thing I could spend endless hours talking about, designing and tasting.For someone who would much rather decline an invitation for a night out to stay in and watch #GBBO, Cake Boss or Cupcake Wars, and the fact that I could pretty much eat cake for breakfast lunch and dinner, you can imagine my delight when it came to my turn to talk and design cake.Now, I must add here that the reason why the cake for me stands on such a high pedestal - literally - is that out of all the Jewish weddings I've been to, which has been a lot, there has never been a cake. Something to do with Kosher rules, I don't know, but no cake. Desert, yes, but no tiered beauty. No soft spongy sensation. So I knew when it was my turn I was destined to have some fuck-off big cake.We want to serve our cake as a desert for all our guests, which is topping 250 at the moment, so it was really important that firstly there was enough, secondly it tasted incredible and thirdly looked breathtaking.The obvious choice of cakeries (not sure that's a word but I love it) for us was of course the masters that are Choccywoccydoodah. If you haven't been to their Brighton or London stores, you are seriously missing out. Or if you haven't seen one of their TV shows, I suggest you watch right now. They are the chocolate gods, famed for their intricate, incredible edible goods, carved, moulded, dipped and shaped. Their handiwork in chocolate knows no bounds. I'm so friggin excited, can you tell??
We've spoken to many people about cakes, been given ideas that might suit, but nothing really has particularly captured us. We looked at lots of designs for inspiration but could never decide on which we liked best. However with the marvelous Christine Taylor - owner of Choccywoccy - steering the ship, we knew we were onto a winner.
*Here's Christine...*
Let me show you her first email to us:
I need to pick away at you until I find the anchor for this cake design.A romantic anchor...Do you have a favourite song? Poem? Nicknames?First dance? Theme tune for your life?Can I get sight of your stationery?How long have you been together?Are you romantic?Have you seen our TinMan design? Wrong colours, but best sentiment. Colours are not an issue.Come back to me when you can.
I mean, this is what you call bespoke. Her and her team start from the very beginning. Every single piece of the chocolate puzzle that becomes your cake is derived from getting to know the couple. I LOVE THIS. It's a proper service, like having a suit tailored to your exact body measurements. It's pure luxury in cake making and design.The emails have continued till literally tonight, asking us what we are wearing, what our wedding invite looks like, what shoes, ties, cufflinks we have, on and on Christine goes to capture everything about us into this cake. And, what's more, she's made cakes for some of my most favourite people in the world: Boy George, Kylie Minogue, Elton John, JACKIE COLLINS and, reportedly, Victoria Beckham!THIS IS CAKE ROYALTY PEOPLE! My God I'm excited!!!Anyway, I've given Christine more details tonight about everything else we are including in the wedding, so let's see what she comes back with. I'm so so happy to leave it in her hands, out of everyone we've spoken to about cakes, she is the one person I can trust to get it right, without being stressed out about it.You're all invited round for a slice after the wedding! Yummmmm.More from Christine, Choccywoccy and the cake to come, so stay tuned!