Trend in wedding desserts piles sweets in simple way
By Kaui Philpotts
Advertiser Staff Writer
There was a day when wedding cakes were almost universally frilly, white, tiered confections with a funny little couple on the top and frosting that tasted more like shortening than butter cream. They did have one advantage. They held up, even though their elegance was compromised.
Lillian Masamitsu
Today, the wedding cake has become as important to the "look" of a wedding as the flowers and the wedding dress. Simplicity, color and yummy taste are back in.
The bold colors and smooth rolled fondant on these cakes by Lillian Masamitsu are a far cry from the plain white, frilly cakes of the past.
Premier Honolulu cake maker Lillian Masamitsu sees clients who take their cake seriously and do their homework even before making an appointment. Masamitsu, who worked in Manhattan for designer cake maker Colette Peters, says the trend toward delicious, fresh cakes with rolled fondant frosting and handmade sugar decorations has come to the Islands.
"The trend began in New York several years ago when a woman who had worked for Peters created wedding cakes for one of the early issues of Martha Stewart Weddings magazine," she says. All of a sudden, everyone wanted those simpler, more interesting stacked cakes based on styles already popular in Britain, Australia and South America.
Trend-watchers say another reason for the change is that couples today tend to be older than those of the past and more discerning and sophisticated in their tastes.
While the traditional butter-cream frostings are still popular, says Masamitsu, the newer-looking rolled fondant holds up better in our warm climate and keeps the cake moist longer.
Masamitsu's own unconventional wedding "cake" last year consisted of tiers of plates of freshly baked malassadas decorated with white lilies and cattleya orchids made of sugar gum paste, sort of her personal take on the traditional French croquembouche.
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Her path to the wedding-cake industry was circuitous: After graduating from Punahou, Masamitsu studied at Cornell University and then landed a job in New York designing accessories for Perry Ellis and baby clothes for The Gap and Old Navy. Frustrated with fashion, she decided to attend the French Culinary Institute, and upon graduation, joined the pastry crew at the glitzy Le Cirque 2000. But it was from Peters that she learned the newer-style cakes.
"In New York everyone was served the wedding cake, but here I often make cakes where just the bottom tier is served and the top is saved for the first anniversary. The other tiers are just decorated Styrofoam."
In Hawai'i, people often feel the wedding cake is just something to be looked at, and they have dessert from the hotel buffet table instead, or are served a sheet cake which has been precut in the kitchen.
Masamitsu, who now has award-winning pastry chef Lisa Siu of 3660 on the Rise bake her cakes, decided that the part she really loves doing is the design work.
For the average wedding cake, it can take 20 or 25 hours just to make the sugar flowers, Masamitsu said. The assembly and decoration takes another 12 hours.
This work is reflected in the cost, which can run $500 to $1,000 and up for the popular three-tier version. An all-real, five-tier cake can cost $1,145 and up, she said.
Although she sometimes gets requests for cakes decorated with real flowers, she usually discourages it or refers the customer to Lisa Siu. "With fresh flowers, it's too hard to control the final product. If I use sugar, I know I can deliver what I promised," she says.
Her cakes often go beyond the simple white confections, pastels, and even bold colors. The most unusual cake request was for a couple who loved the cartoon character Scooby-Doo. She had Scooby-Do characters running up the side of the cake to a haunted mansion.
But her most requested cake is a simple vanilla chiffon with liliko'i butter-cream frosting. You can see some at www.cakesbylil.com.
Topped with sugar bows
Carmen Emerson-Bass, who studied with Peters at the Notter International School of Confectionery Arts in Maryland, also has noticed the trend toward new looks in wedding cakes. Emerson-Bass makes wedding and celebration cakes under the name Cake Couture.
Her elegant, simple cakes are topped with bows and sugar ribbons, as well as flowers and jewel-like leaves for a sophisticated result.
Some favorite flavors are hazelnuts with praline and vanilla with raspberries and butter cream.
The bride, she says, should have some idea of what she wants before coming to a cake designer. But she has a book of designs if the bride doesn't know where to begin.
Her most popular design is a stack of round cakes decorated to look like elaborate gifts. Another popular design begins with stacked squares in graduated sizes. Her work can be viewed at www.cakecouture.com.
Consider the cutting fee
Some notes for brides to consider: In Hawai'i, many weddings are held at hotels, and the hotel will throw in the cake as part of the wedding package. Hotel pastry chefs for the most part make fairly simple cakes, Emerson-Bass says, and when they get a request for an elaborate one, they have people like her do it. Some hotels also charge a fee for cutting a cake brought from outside, she says, which can run up the price of the wedding considerably.
Rick Chang, sous pastry chef at the Halekulani hotel, acknowledges that cakes brought from outside makers can cost more because of the hotel's cutting fee. However, the charge often is waived when the customer spends a lot, he said. The Halekulani's bridal package includes the cake along with a bridal suite.
"I think the hotel's reputation is such that people usually have us make their cakes," Chang says. Its master cake maker, Masa Takahashi, specializes in all-cake masterpieces of butter-cream and apricot jam filling layered between pieces of orange- and lemon-flavored pound cake.
Chang says Americans love butter cream, but Japanese clients prefer the lighter whipped cream. Because most event rooms are air-conditioned, having the cake fall before their eyes rarely is a problem. "Our guests usually want to eat the whole cake. They rarely save the top anymore," he says.
