Cake for Dinner

This morning we headed up for a chilly winter day in Maine to taste some treats from our catering company. We also got to see our ceremony/reception venue again and make some mental notes about decorations, place settings, and all that jazz. Going in we were quite excited for delicious food and hanging out with the parents.

After finding a seat and a Kir Royal (it was 12:02, a perfectly acceptable to drink) I glanced through the packet of questions Black Tie gave me to help hone in on our catering and rental costs. The first question I noticed was "Married Title:" and inwardly groaned about all of the things I have yet to decide. Questions further into the packet like "Guest Napkin Color:" and "Once introduced, the bridal party will go to: (head table/dance floor/individual tables)" made me seriously doubt my planning this past year, so I put the packet away and out of my mind and tucked into a plateful of randomly selected appetizers.

To be honest, of the six hors d'oeuvres we were offered, I would not have chosen any of them. But since they were put before me I tried most of them, and some were tasty, and some were not. I forgot to take a picture until after I ate them (oops), so you will have to believe me. A raspberry-and-brie combo proved tasty and a Thai pork cup was yummy, and though neither will likely be featured at the wedding they gave us a taste for the kinds of foods with which we want to open the food portion of our wedding.

Next up was a generic basket of rolls and three different salads. We assumed we would go with a plain ol' salad, but a fancier salad caught our eyes taste buds and was the first item of our tasting menu to make it onto the official wedding menu! Here it is:

Mesclun Greens Salad with Dried Cranberries, Feta, & Spicy Pecans with Champagne Vinaigrette

After our salad options we moved onto a buffet of 10ish entree options, running the gamut from meaty to vegetarian to starch sides. We liked the beef options a lot, the chicken a little, the fish and raviolis and cold asparagus not at all, and the potatoes were decent. It was a good survey of Black Tie's entree options, and while our main dishes offered will likely not be those we had today we learned a lot. A good portion of that lesson was that buffet lines suck and things get cold. Unless the price difference is in the thousands, we will probably choose the plated option for everybody's comfort.

Stuffed to the brim and ready to move along, they shoved a box of cake samples at us and we hit the road. After some dallying with parents we headed back to Boston and let our stomachs un-fill a bit before trying the cake. When we could once again stomach the idea of food, we opened our cake box and found this:

(The cake samples were marble, lemon, red velvet and toasted almond. Frosting samples were regular buttercream, Italian buttercream, chocolate buttercream, cream cheese, and raspberry bavarian cream.)

We not-so-gracefully slathered different frosting on bites of different cakes and proceeded to live out a childhood dream: we had cake for dinner. I of course now realize why my parents did not allow that particular dream, as all the sugar made me want to throw up. With the nausea subsiding, I present our cake reviews:

Marble and Almond cakes -- fine, but sort of boring.
Lemon cake -- delicious, but not Vader's cup of tea
Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting -- heavenly. Will be a featured cupcake at the wedding.
Chocolate and vanilla buttercream -- tasted like the frosting my high schoolers could make last year. Eh.
Italian buttercream -- smooth and a good accent taste to a flavorful cake. May adorn our cutting cake.
Raspberry bavarian cream -- quite good. Vader literally just licked the plastic cup of it clean, so I think he's a fan. Will be featured at the wedding in a cupcake named something like "Raspberry Explosion."

Along with the two cupcakes to emerge out of our tasting cakes, we will probably feature the "Chocolate Bourbon-Pecan" cupcake and the "Carrot Supreme" cupcake. Use your imagination for what's in them :)

Lastly, all this cake talk led to a bit more wedding conversation. We decided we want a whitish cutting cake for cute pictures, that Vader may or may not sub in a groomsman's sword for our cutting knife (because no, we don't have custom wedding cake tools and we REALLY don't need them), and that while we will probably smush cake on each other for the camera it had better not get out of hand. Who's jazzed for cake?