Photo by Nicole Friedler
Tasty Cakes
Story by Jim Miller
Some people weep with joy at weddings.
I weep with joy at wedding cakes.
While I can’t claim any sort of gourmet pastry credentials, I have attended many weddings in the past
(including my own) where I’ve sat grinning with a heap of denuded dessert plates in front of me.
While revelers mimicked chickens at a DJ’s behest, I’ve scavenged like a seagull for slices left unguarded.
So with my background as a cake-o-phile established, I embarked on a cake-tasting tour of the principal Island purveyors
of wedding cakes.
Among the things I learned that would-be brides and grooms should know:
- Book early for any weekend between late May and early October. (Duh.)
- Chefs will arrange cake tastings (usually at no charge), but be warned that many are very busy in-season, and some can be difficult to track down or closed in the off-season.
- Prepare to pay between $5 and $10 per guest. Price doesn’t vary much between chefs, but varies greatly depending on how ornate the cake is.
- While one could conceivably bring a cake over from the mainland, the added opportunity for error isn’t worth it – and with these wonderful chefs at your service, only a fool would do so.
| The Black Dog | Cakes By Liz | Leslie Hewson |
|---|---|---|
| When pastry chef Laura Beckman appeared in the Black Dog Café with a tray of six gorgeous mini cakes, I almost asked her to marry me. A Tisbury native, Laura has been working at the Black Dog since she was fifteen, with four years off to earn a bachelor’s degree from the College of Culinary Arts at Johnson & Wales University in Providence. | Down a sandy lane near Tashmoo, I found the commercial kitchen of Liz Kane, who’s been baking on-Island for fifteen years. Liz was crafting seven-layer bars as she gave me an energetic and friendly education in cakes, while I assembled my own little tasting cakes from chunks of cake and small dishes of icing. | Leslie Hewson, who co-owns Mediterranean in Vineyard Haven with her husband, Doug, says she does twenty or so wedding cakes in a typical year. She likens “seeing the faces light up” to applause from an audience – she’s a performer working in the medium of “fat and sugar.” She also puts an emphasis on value, particularly for locals. “I’m sympathetic to Islanders getting married here.” |
| Most popular cake: The Black Dog’s signature Chocolate Majesty cake has two layers of chocolate cake, three layers of mousse (dark, milk, white), topped with whipped cream and ganache artfully poured on for a striking black and white cake. | Most popular cakes: White cake with whipped cream and berries; yellow cake with lemon whipped cream; and vanilla with chocolate mousse. | Most popular cakes: Chocolate cakes, particularly mousse cakes, masked in traditional white are popular, but also “mixed” cakes of both chocolate and vanilla or white. |
| Celebrity customers: Dirty Dancer Jennifer Grey chose a simple vanilla cake with strawberries. | Celebrity customers: Liz was protective of her high-profile clients but let it slip that James Taylor’s daughter Sally enjoyed one of Liz’s cakes on her big day. | Celebrity customers: Leslie carries a heavy burden, having done a coconut cake for Bill Clinton in 2004, immediately before he needed coronary bypass surgery. “I felt guilty,” she admits. |
| Weirdest cake: She’s done a cake replicating a softball diamond, and a sand castle using brown sugar “sand.” But for sheer shock value, I’ll go with the Lilly Pulitzer cake featuring a different garish pattern on each layer, designed to match the attire of the bridesmaids (who must have been thrilled). | Weirdest cake: A groom’s cake modeled after the Green Monster at Fenway Park. She also created a cake that looked like an actual Nantucket basket full of sugared grapes, complete with a handle. “The bride asked if I could do a miniature one for her on every anniversary. . . . No!” | Weirdest cake: Two motorcycle enthusiasts ordered a cake in the shape of Harley-Davidson’s winged logo. “People are getting creative,” Leslie says. But she adds, “I won’t serve it if I, or my mother-in-law, wouldn’t eat it.” |
| Advice to brides: Relax. “People really know their jobs, and it always works out.” Stressed-out brides have come into the Black Dog in tears, but Laura says, “They don’t leave crying; no one can cry while eating chocolate.” | Advice to brides: Have a cut-cake buffet – you can plan for ten fewer guests, and overzealous servers won’t take uneaten slices away while people are dancing. | Advice to brides: “Know the role the cake plays.” Cost and stress level vary depending on whether it’s the main dessert or a pretty formality. She also spoke of tense trips down bumpy dirt roads: “You’re not paying me to make the cake, you’re paying me to get it there on time.” |
| Killer cake: The simple perfection of the vanilla cake with buttercream frosting and a filling of white chocolate mousse and raspberries stood out. | Killer cake: Her devil’s food was particularly yummy. Liz herself confesses: “I’m a chocoholic.” | Killer cake: Leslie’s chocolate mousse cake was unreservedly delicious – it warmed me on a frigid winter day. |
| Martha’s Vineyard Gourmet Cafe & Bakery |
Soigné | Val Cakes |
| Pastry chef Rafat “Raffi” Jabri boasts thirty years of experience in pastry, including stints in England, France, Kuwait, and his native Jordan. I spoke with Janice Casey, who opened the business in 2001 with Rita Brown. | I met Ronald Cavallo and Diana Rabaioli (a.k.a. “Puppy” and “Dede”) at cozy Soigné, where for twenty-two years Island gourmets have come for just the right olive oil or pasta. Soigné has fully catered weddings in the past, and found it . . . challenging. “Brides are a nightmare,” laments Puppy. So they now choose to do a lower volume to “keep it on the delicious side,” as Dede puts it. Dede and chef Theresa Geigler only create about twelve cakes a year. | I met chef Valerie Stoyer at Lattanzi’s in Edgartown, where she’s been the pastry chef for ten years. In this elegant setting Valerie appeared, carrying a plate of four slices beautifully arranged, “so clients can see it together on the plate.” I swooned. Valerie studied accounting in college but decided to pursue baking. She learned baking, she says, through a rigorous process of “tasting, testing, playing around . . . it’s a long winter.” |
| Most popular cakes: A beach-themed cake tops the list, and strawberry shortcakes (topped with strawberries and shaved white Belgian chocolate) are always popular. “People oohhh and ahhh when they see them in our cake display,” notes Janice. | Most popular cakes: Chocolate truffle cake sells well, but Dede prefers her tiramisu cake. | Most popular cake: The Opera Cake is a dark chocolate cake with Kahlua liqueur, layered with mocha, espresso, and dark chocolate fillings. “Some brides will shy away from color or richness in a cake, but many will simply say, ‘I like chocolate.’” |
| Celebrity customers: Pre-Vineyard, the Royal Jordanian Court called upon Raffi’s skills for numerous special occasions. | Celebrity customers: Vineyard icon Carly Simon and news maven Diane Sawyer. Years ago, Dede even did a wedding cake for a member of the family that owns a prominent canine-themed bakery in Tisbury. | Celebrity customers: Bill Clinton enjoyed Valerie’s vanilla cake with mocha mousse and mocha buttercream at his birthday bash last year. |
| Weirdest cake: In a feat of edible engineering, M.V. Gourmet created a five-tier cake in which each layer was lopsided, a different kind of cake, iced in a unique design (stripes, basket weave, diamonds, etc.), and positioned so that ultimately the top of the cake was level. | Weirdest cake: A few unique grooms’ cakes include an LP for a record producer, a goose for a hunter, and “a giant rat – I don’t know why,” Dede says. | Weirdest cake: A gay couple designed their own “Xanadu”-themed cake (remember the movie with Olivia Newton-John?). |
| Advice to brides: “Have a plan to move the outdoor wedding inside . . . especially during hurricane season,” Janice says. Also, for large weddings (or if trying to stay within a budget), order a sheet cake on the side, which will look and taste the same as the main cake when served. | Advice to brides: Dede bemoans the “Martha Stewart factor” and demanding couples from “the 212 area code.” Soigné prefers to keep it simple. They also specifically don’t recommend having your mother-in-law bake the cake, as that often results in having to do a “day-of cake.” | Advice to brides: Bring in pictures of cakes you like, but do something unique. |
| Killer cake: I didn’t get to try any of Raffi’s creations, since M.V. Gourmet is closed in the off-season. | Killer cake: Soigné is a relaxed outfit, so for my tasting Dede simply fed me an incredibly rich and satisfying brownie with a ganache filling. It was killer. | Killer cake: Valerie specializes in smooth-looking fondant icing, but my favorite was her almond cake with amaretto liqueur, white- chocolate cream, and crunchy almond-chocolate-truffle filling. The crunch adds, in her words, a “textural contrast.” |