City Guides: Whether your wedding is traditional, modern or filled with whimsy, three LA bakeries have the fairy tale ending to your wedding day and a cake designed to suit the individual style of any I Do Diva.
The style of your wedding day starts with the proposal and your engagement ring and continues through the cutting of the cake. Whether you're a traditionalist, a modernist or a bit of a gypsy filled with whimsy, there are several decadent, I Do directions to head in when it comes to the cutting of the cake.
Lucky for you, you are in great hands in Los Angeles as LA's bakers are top artisans. They are as skilled and prestigious when it comes to cake decorating and design as Vera Wang, Gaultier and Lhuillier are with the design of the dress. Similar to fashion houses, they too are designing one of a kind atelier style cakes to ensure that great fairy tale ending.
Before you cut in to your cake, think about the lasting impression you want to make on your guests. More importantly think about the style of your wedding and what is a good fit for your big I Do.
The Traditionalist Hansen's Cakes
have long been the "go to" baker in LA. If you're a history buff, pull in to the original Hansens's on Fairfax with the largest and greatest wedding cake display in all of LA and catch the lovely Patrick Hansen, a seventh generation baker. Today the legacy continues with famous fans and faces filling the family's bakery walls.
Patrick himself hand delivered a 12 tier cake to the Reagens and will fight with his staff to be the one to deliver the many cakes ordered for the Playboy Mansion. Likewise, Hansen's can be seen at every major award show in the city and was recently the chosen cake for the famed Kardashian Wedding.
The base of Hansen's success is a tightly held family recipe. All cakes are custom made to order and all of their ingredients, including frostings, fillings and the water used are made on site. The taste is unique, hence the popularity.
Pop in to any of their three locations in LA (the original on Fairfax), Beverly Hills or Tarzana to check out their cakes and custom-order your own slice of history. No appointments necessary.
The Modernist Cake Divas
Partners Leigh Grode & Joan Spitler of The Cake Divas definitively live up to their name. For the past twelve years this nontraditional, fairy tale bakery has made magic happen by seriously pushing the envelope and the pan and by staying ahead of the cutting edge cake trends.
The boundary pushing bakers were recently flown to Turks and Caicos to make a 6 -foot high wedding cake covered in crystals and jewels with a 3 dimensional light up sugar carriage with the bride and groom inside. It was led by 6 sugar horses, and framed with a teardrop crystal curtain.
LA's Cake Divas were recently flown to Mexico for a celebrity wedding to make 150 mini wedding cakes and with clintel such as
Selene Gomez, George Lopez and Antonio Banderas the Cake Diva's have a well established following. They worked closely with Johnny Depp on the tea party scene and are celebs in their own right, featured on the Alice DVD extras.
So, if you fancy yourself a diva and have long lived outside of the box and the pan, why stop now? Push the I Do envelope as well and custom make some magic with the Divas who collaborate with their clients for that statement making cake. What will your wedding cake say about you? Drop the Divas a visit on Venice Boulevard in Culver City to find out.
The Whimsical Wedding
For those blushing brides that don't take themselves too seriously and live life with a bit of whimsy thrown in, Sprinkles(cup) cakes and Bakery may be just the thing for you.
This is hardly a low-key concession as Sprinkles Cupcakes are handcrafted from the finest ingredients, including sweet cream butter, bittersweet Belgian chocolate, pure Madagascar Bourbon vanilla, fresh bananas and carrots, real strawberries and natural citrus zest, baked fresh from scratch in small batches throughout the day.
This innovative cupcake tour de force is always on the lookout for new flavor combinations and just recently launched Salty Caramel cupcakes, which was a crowd pleaser to the Angeleno audience. You and your whimsical wedding will be spot on in the trend direction as cupcakes have long been at the epicenter of trends.
Cupcake presentations can be done with towering tiers or as parting gifts. Sprinkles recently launched their own food truck, another LA trend. The truck can come to you and your wedding and serve the cups of love to your guests or you may want to use it as your getaway.
By Karen Loftus
