Chef Shop Baking’s Nancy Stark has over 30 years’ experience as a pastry chef and now serves the Kansas City metro area. Her delicious cakes and sweet tables grace weddings and other events and have received excellent reviews by customers. Chef Shop offers a signature French vanilla buttercream frosting along with a wide range of flavors and fillings for custom cakes.
Clock Tower Bakery is a passionate believer in natural and fresh baking and provides wholesome baked goods to the Kansas City metro area, Kansas. The bakery specializes in British inspired cakes, pastries, and English tea. It also designs custom cakes for various occasions. Clock Tower Bakery is a proud participant of the local farmers’ market and supports charitable causes.
Dolce Bakery has been serving made-from-the-scratch, warm, hearty baked goods to the Kansas City metro area, Kansas for a decade. It offers pastries, bars, cookies, cupcakes, and confections and also provides cakes and dessert bars for weddings. Dolce is an active participant in local community events and fundraising efforts.
Elvira’s is a family-run business with a rich Mexican heritage that has been operating in the Kansas City metro area, Missouri since 1994. With eight skilled bakers, the bakery provides tasty antojitos, cakes, desserts, parties and seasonal bread to its customers. Elvira's believes in providing a rich taste and authenticity to everything that comes out of its' kitchen.
KcCakelady in Kansas City, Kansas, makes wedding cakes for couples throughout the Greater Kansas City metro area. In business for more than three years, it offers buttercream wedding cakes made by a self-taught Buttercream Artist who specializes in one-of-a-kind designs. Each cake is baked fresh and has minimal fondant accents. The business takes wedding cake bookings up to a year ahead of the couple's wedding date. Dozens of flavors and fillings are available.
Nellie's Custom Cakes has been designing custom cakes with sugar paste flowers and custom colors for the Kansas City metro area, Missouri for over 20 years. It also provides designer sugar cookies, gourmet cookie trays, and sweets such as truffles and cake pops for parties and special events. Nellie's is committed to baking fresh without freezing and serves corporate clients.
Shannon Bond Cake Design is a home-based, gourmet cake design studio in the Kansas City metro area. The bakery sources natural ingredients and takes limited orders to ensure the best possible professional service and quality for all events. It has been named a Satin Ice Artist of Excellent in rolled fondant and is a 2016 pick by The Knot Best of Weddings award. Shannon Bond, the owner, is a master instructor in cake design and has been featured in publications such as DIY Weddings, Café Central and Cake Masters.
Sweet Bliss Cakery is a home-based business that has catered cakes and desserts for a range of events and groups in the Kansas City metro area, Missouri for over 40 years. The shop caters to elegant wedding, fun parties as well as formal corporate events and can accommodate both small and large groups.
Take the Cake by Kay has baked hundreds of fresh, 3-layer cakes with signature mousse filling for various events in the Kansas City metro area, Kansas for over 25 years. The business specializes in elegant custom wedding cakes and offers special services such as working with the event venue and florists and providing an extra top tier for the anniversary. Take the Cake takes pride on its’ ‘never frozen’ cakes.
The Cake Pan LLC has made custom cakes with natural ingredients and buttercream icing for events in the Kansas City metro area, Missouri for more than three decades. The bakery offers Wilton Certified cake decoration classes and sells supplies for cake decorations, candies, invitations, and napkins. Customers highly rate the quality, appeal and the service offered by The Cake Pan.
There are many different types of wedding cakes with various flavors, designs, and icing options, so the best wedding cake comes down to personal taste. Some of the most popular wedding cake flavors include vanilla cake with buttercream, red velvet, vanilla cake with blackberries and sugar flowers, and pumpkin spice with cinnamon fondant.
Wedding cakes can cost anywhere between $75 and $1,500. The price of a wedding cake is determined by size, ingredients, specialty toppings, and cake decorations, so specific prices can deviate from the average based on your needs.
The size and quantity of wedding cake you should order depend on how many guests will be attending your wedding. A standard three-tier cake serves between 50 and 100 guests, and a quarter sheet cake provides 54 servings. A half sheet cake serves 108 single slices.
There are many options for wedding cake flavors, and cakes can also be customized with nontraditional flavors. Common options include vanilla with buttercream frosting, red velvet with white buttercream frosting, chocolate and German chocolate, and marble cake. Less traditional options include lemon, carrot, and banana.
The most common flavor of a traditional wedding cake is vanilla cake with buttercream frosting. However, chocolate is also considered traditional, especially for groom's cakes. German chocolate, red velvet, and champagne flavored cakes are also popular and fall into the traditional category.
Traditional wedding cakes generally have three separate tiers, but cakes can be customized to meet the visions of the bride and groom. Each tier has its own significance. The top tier is to be saved by the bride and groom and eaten on the first wedding anniversary, and the bottom tier is to be served at the reception. The middle tier is distributed to guests after the wedding.
Wedding cakes can be purchased at standard bakeries and grocery stores. There are also bakers that specialize in wedding cakes. When deciding on a wedding cake, couples often meet with bakers to sample different flavors and cake textures as well as discuss their visions for cake designs and decorations.
Wedding cakes are prepared in the same fashion as all cakes. The batter is prepared, then poured into cake pans, and baked at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 to 60 minutes. Once the cake layers have cooled, they're either iced immediately or frozen until ready for decorating. Icing is then applied, followed by specialty sugared toppings and cake decorations.
Cakes have served as wedding centerpieces since medieval times when stacks of buns were placed in the center of the reception area to honor the bride and groom. Cutting the cake represents the first activity couples complete together as bride and groom, then the cake is served to guests at weddings as dessert following dinner.
Factors that can make a wedding cake expensive include cake size, ingredients, and decorations. Fondant icing or specialty sugar flowers are more expensive than basic buttercream frosting, and custom filling flavors also add to a cake's price. The baker's time and labor affect the overall price of a cake, especially for cakes with elaborate designs and intricate details.
Standard wedding cakes are priced by the slice, ranging from $1.50 to $12. Buttercream is the most common wedding cake icing, and specialty icing, such as fondant, can increase the price. On average, a standard wedding cake serving 50 guests at $1.50 per slice would cost around $75. For 100 guests, the average cost would be approximately $150, and for 150 guests, plan to pay around $225.
Wedding cakes and regular cakes are generally baked with the same types of ingredients. However, the difference between the two is that wedding cakes are specifically created for weddings, so they may be decorated and frosted to represent the bride and groom. Wedding cakes also often consist of three tiers, and the top tiers are saved by the bride and groom until their one-year anniversary.
On average, wedding cakes can range in price between $500 to $1,500, while cupcakes have an average cost of $3 apiece. In most cases, cupcakes would be a cheaper option, but it's important to factor in the number of guests attending your wedding. For example, a wedding with 300 guests would equal $900 for wedding cupcakes.
Wedding cakes can be made up to two weeks in advance of a wedding. The layers can be frozen up to a few days prior to the wedding, then thawed for a full day prior to icing. When ordering through a bakery, how long in advance a cake can be made depends on the specific policies of the business.
If your wedding reception is at a large venue with multiple guests, using a microphone to get everyone's attention to announce the cake cutting is a good idea. For smaller receptions, the caterer or someone in the wedding party can go table-to-table and let the guests know the cake's about to be cut.
It's considered customary for the bride and groom to cut the first pieces of the wedding cake, which is often followed by the feeding of the cake to one another. In certain cases, sheet cake is served to guests, which may be cut by a caterer prior to the reception.
A traditional Italian wedding cake is called a Millefoglie, and there are several variations of the recipe. The cake is made from multiple thin layers of filo pastry, and each layer is covered in cream or mascarpone and berries. The entire cake is then dusted with powdered sugar. Italian wedding cakes are sometimes referred to as thousand layer cakes.
It's a well-known tradition for couples to save the top tiers of wedding cakes as a symbol of prosperity and good luck throughout their marriages. The top tier of a wedding cake is generally placed in the freezer for one year, then enjoyed on the couple's wedding anniversary.
If possible, the wedding cake should be prefrozen without wrapping to allow the icing to harden. Wrap the cake or cake slices loosely in about three layers of plastic wrap, then place the cake in a box. Once the cake is boxed, wrap the box tightly in plastic wrap and place it in the freezer.
Some people are natural bakers who require little to no training to become wedding cake bakers. For those who wish to open professional cake businesses, it's a good idea to obtain baker and cake decorator certifications. These certifications can be earned by taking courses through associations, such as the Retail Bakers Association and AIB International.
