For a while now, our friends over at Charm City Cakes have been referring couples to us that contact them requesting cakes in AZ (it's a bit outside of their delivery range). It took us long enough but we decided that it was time to throw a little love their way.
Typically, as a cake shop, if we want to say "thanks"... we send a cake (duh)... but what does cake shop send to thank another cake shop?
A trash can, obviously :)
If you have been into our shop, you have definitely noticed the coolest trash can in the world sitting next to our water cooler and since the Charm City staff are a bunch of Star Wars freaks, we knew getting them one of their own was the perfect gift:
As you might expect, they love it (seriously, who wouldn't)! Duff told me that they have a pile of lightsabers in the bakery and that R2 found a home next to them. (yeah, it probably looks cooler than ours just sitting next to a water cooler, but you have to admit... that's a pretty sweet water cooler... I'm just sayin').
I should mention, they just started shooting season 5 of Ace of Cakes http://www.aceofcakestv.com/, If you don't already watch it, you should. Seriously. It's a lot of fun and they are really a great group. .. and at the very least, if you watch it you may see a sweet trash can.
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I recently added a bit about this on our FAQ page, but since it comes up quite a bit, I figured I would blog it too.
Wedding cake sizing can be a real point of confusion for couples when meeting with different cake companies. I mean, if you order a cake that "serves 100" from one company, it's going to be the same size as a cake that "serves 100" from another company.... right?
Umm... no. Unfortunately, this is where some couples can end up paying more for less if they don't do some research. To some cake shops, a 3 tier cake that consists of a 12" round, 9" round, and a 6" round, feeds 100 guests. Based on the serving chart that we use, those same cakes feed just 84 guests. Yep, you read that right. You can order the exact same size cake from 2 different companies and one will charge you for 84 servings and the other will charge you for 100 servings.
If the 100 serving place is $3.50 a serving and the 84 serving place charges $4.00 serving... then the $3.50 per serving place is cheaper....right? Not so much. (84 servings x $4 = $336, 100 servings x$3.50 = $350). And now you know how a $4.00 per serving cake can be less expensive than a $3.50 per serving cake... even for the exact same size cake.
Don't get me wrong, the bakers that say that say a 12-9-6 configuration feeds 100 guests aren't trying to screw anyone, they are just using the industry standard Wilton serving chart to calculate their servings... most bakers use it... but not everyone.
My tip: Always ask what sizes your cake layers will be so that you can accurately compare 2 or more companies wedding cake pricing, you may be surprised.
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What a cool week this has been so far!
So we get a call from The Castle at Ashley Manor on Monday (5/12) and they invite us to attend their first ever "public" open house on Wednesday (5/15). If you have ever seen The Castle you know how awesome the place is...obviously we accepted. But there was a catch... and an awesome one at that.
You see, they were looking for another cake vendor to add into their all inclusive packages but they weren't actually selecting us (here's where the awesome part comes in), they were inviting us and the other top cake companies in the valley (6 in all) to compete against each other for a shot at the title. Awesome right??? A freaking cake throwdown!!! It gets better... Instead of just selecting who they wanted as their cake vendor... they gave the power to the people! All of the attendees were given ballots and were able to cast votes using 5 different criteria (cake appearance, flavor, etc) to evaluate the cake companies. Basically, the couples looked, they tasted, they chatted, and they voted.
If I am being honest, I'm not even sure I would have voted for us if I had been an impartial attendee. There were so many great cake vendors with amazing displays and delicious cakes to taste, I imagine that the voting was extremely close.
In the end... I am happy to say that the majority of couples in attendance voted Piece Of Cake (hey, that's us!!) as the winner and we are extremely excited to begin our relationship with The Castle at Ashley Manor.
Whether we had won or not, I would have to give mad props to their staff for coming up with an amazing idea and really getting their brides involved in the process! We had a blast and it looked like all of the attendees did too!
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We just got word that the Wedding Central episode that was partially filmed at our shop will be appearing on WeTV on August 10th, 2008 (check your local listings for times, but in AZ on DirecTV it's on at 8PM). I must warn you though… they interviewed me 3 times and 2 of them were prior to any caffeine consumption whatsoever. In other words, I may actually embarrass my mother.
Aside from my sleepy eyed rambling it should be a great episode. Carol (our bride) was really a joy to work with and even though reality TV means repeating things over and over (I think she had to “enter” our shop 3 times for the camera) she kept smiling the whole time…well at least the time spent with us.
Here are a couple of shots of the cake we created for Carol & Mark on their big day:
You can see a preview of Carol & Mark's wedding in the "Little People, Big Day" segment of the WeTV Wedding Central video below.
Congratulations Carol & Mark!!
More information about this epsiode, including airtimes can be found here: http://www.wetv.com/wedding-central/episodes/little-people-big-day
Unfortunately COX doesn't carry WeTV, so if you can't watch it... you can take my word for it... we rocked. ;)
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It's always fun when a couple lets us do funky stuff to their cake, so as you can imagine... we had some fun this week!
This cake was delivered to
Villa Siena on Saturday and even though we create wedding cakes for 80% of the weddings that take place there, we got some funky looks while setting this one up. :)
The bride loved it and the caterers were freaked at the prospect of having to disassemble and cut it... to me that makes for a pretty sweet delivery!
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