because this is exactly what you want to see after a 3 hour car ride...

because when you've driven 3 hours and crossed into another country to try out cake for your wedding, this is exactly what you want to see:



despite 3 separate phone calls asking if i needed to make a tasting appointment for a weekend visit, i managed to go on the day of some annual street festival with droves of people as far as the eye could see. there was a long line of people at the bakery. luckily the "cheap deals" weren't necessarily inside, so i took a number and was the fifth person helped. the lady was more than a little dismayed that i'd come on such a busy day, but kindly sent us home with a box full 'o cakes to try. a look washed over her face when i requested to try everything that was whipping cream based, but then i reassured her i was in the market for sheet cake and i knew that they wouldn't work so well for traditional wedding tiers.
andrew had a quick glance at my blog as i previewed it for layout and he said "where's my tasty picture?" here goes!

jenn had raved about the mocha whipping cream cake, but i made the drive to burnaby for the tiramisu. i was at the mercy of what was in stock, so two of the cakes were flaky pastry based rather than sponge cake based as it would be for a wedding, but with free cake i can't complain! i was suprised that there were differences between the whipping creams on some of the cakes.

the tiramisu was super rich, no doubt due to the mascapone cheese's effect on my stomach after all the other cakes i'd ingested. i wasn't a fan of how the sides were iced - i didn't manage to snap a photo of the cake itself so this circled photo is going to have to do. i asked if it could be perfectly smoothed out and she said it wasn't possible. the closest the siding could come to this concept is the image at the bottom right.






the next day we finalized my order at the florist in east van ("omg i actually bought flowers!" says the girl who is obssessed with "dead things" (branches/twigs/pods) and balks at the idea of delicate petals and leaves that will wilt and die at the end of the day), and in passing, she asked where we were getting the cake. i said we'd gone to a bakery in burnaby, and she looked at me, confused, then asked something to the effect of - oh, a white bakery? why don't you try anna's cake house just around the corner (an asian bakery)? after telling her i was planning to get a second cake at michele's in kerrisdale (an asian bakery in a posh part of town), she gently suggested anna's again, thinking they would certainly be cheaper.


we didn't get a chance to speak with the official cake man about the cakes because we had to jet for seattle, but all i have to say is asian bakeries are so much better than caucasian bakeries. i can describe both the whipping cream and the sponge cake components as being lighter and more airy, and there's an overall heightened sense of "freshness." where else but an asian bakery can you get coconut or mango mousse filling? their tiramisu was admittedly more cake-y and less traditional, perhaps with less or none of the marscapone, perhaps lacking the lady fingers, but it certainly wasn't as heavy and filling and i think it's a big winner. and look! it looks like they can even do that clean, simple whipping cream "frosting" that i want, without the need for any ridges or sprinkles to cover it up. potentially, if their mango whipping cream cake is as good as michele's, i could pick up that and the tiramisu and the flowers at the same place.