2009 Seattle Wedding Cake Competition

The beautiful venue

On January 21, 2009, we helped to organize, and then participated in the (first annual) Seattle Wedding Cake Competition at The Canal. Four local wedding cake bakers - Macrina, Morfey's, and Decadence Custom Cakes accepted invitations to participate - unfortunately, Sugar Bakery + Cafe was laid low with the flu at the last minute and couldn't participate - next year maybe?

Marcia at the Canal helped kick things off when she graciously offered to host the event after I came up with the idea last summer. Then Macrina opted in right away.

Other invitees said no - surprising to me, but some folks hate the attention, a concept that is completely foreign to me :) But I had always thought that if we had 3 -5 bakers we would be ok. So, invitations went out at the Wedding Show at the beginning of January, then via e-mail later in the month.

The plan was that each baker would bring a cake to finish on site, and would give tastings. Then, the audience would vote on a winner, and then a winning bridal couple would get drawn from the audience to receive a cake from the winning baker. Fun, no? Hell yes it was fun!!

Erin decorating the Morfey's cake.

The cake up close!


Jane from Macrina
Dan with his cake.

We got to the venue really early, and then it only took about 11 minutes to set up! But it was ok - we got to meet everyone, and then lo and behold at 6:00 people started arriving! It was an open house for The Canal, and the cake competition added interest and gave everyone something to do in addition to looking around.

In the end it was close, but Dan at Decadence was the winner, and I think everyone had a great time.

Here's Dan with the winning bride.

Cakes and Flavors

Decadence - Vanilla chiffon cake filled with passionfruit and coconut mousses.

Macrina - Tuxedo cake and almond torta.

Morfey's - Champagne cake with champagne and raspberry filling.

The Wedding Show - January 2009

The booth

The damask cake

Classic swirls with roses - cookies to the left and flowers to the right

January 3 and 4, 2009 - here are pictures of our booth. This was an amazing adventure. So many new things to learn. Working on developing a logo, working on design and copy for a brochure, physically getting everything printed, deciding on what display cakes to bring, how to set up the booth for best visual impact, what we needed in the booth, staffing the booth, moving in and moving out (in the snow!), how much cake to take, the best way to serve samples (there are actually more options than you might think! - sample cups, on napkins, in cupcake holders, etc). This was so much adrenalin, and fun, and exhaustion.

The cake in the very front of the booth was an inspiration - I saw the Martha Stewart Weddings magazine a week before the show, and was able to order feather butterflies from the same vendor she used, and we were able to put the cake together in time for the show. It was really fun/funny to have people walk up to the booth and shriek "ohmygod that's the martha stewart cake!!" And I caught one of my helpers nonchalantly saying, oh yeah, they took a picture of our cake for that magazine! I stopped laughing just long enough to tell her she can't say that!