Weddings & Celebrations
Piece of Cake
Undulating ruffles. Dripping Edwardian lace. Ivory-colored sugar paste hydrangeas. Few things inspire more “oohs” and “aahs” than a wedding cake (except for the bride) and few are as disaster-prone. Cake-zilla, anyone?
Worst of all, a cake, pristine and flowery from afar, but up close resembling a woman with too much artifice, only to taste of Crisco and chemicals before turning to dust in your mouth.
Cupcakes with fresh berries? Sugar flowers atop a fondant-covered cake? Say the hell with it all and get Fudgy the Whale from Carvel? What are a bride and groom to do?
Oliver Kita, based in Rhinebeck, is a true Renaissance culinarian; he is a master chocolatier and pastry chef. Kita caters and makes wedding cakes. I consider proposing to him. Some people will do anything for a piece of cake.
Says Kita, “Hire someone you can fire. The most common mistake a couple can make is to allow someone they love to bake their wedding cake. Hire a professional that you can be completely honest with. No tears, no hurt feelings. You can’t fire your favorite aunt when it all goes badly because she didn’t anticipate her oven not working properly and it impacts the rest of the event as she pulls a marathon and is too exhausted to have fun at the wedding.”
Take one look at any of cakes here and you’ll schedule a wedding, whether or not you have an intended, or whether or not you even want to be married.
When Mim Galligan retired from a 30-year career as an art teacher, she took the CIA’s six-month pastry course and became a pastry chef. She’s also a painter, and has, among other things, re-created a Cézanne painting atop a hexagonal groom’s cake.
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