In tasty pursuit of a confection to fit the occasion.
When sweet shop windows fill mid-February with heart-shaped boxes and sprays of red roses, thoughts turn to love and marriage. I haven’t made it to the altar yet and never fancied myself much of a bride, but on a recent wedding cake tasting through the pastry shops of the East Bay I fell in love with my inner Marie Antoinette. As I nibbled my way through platters of angel and devil’s food, my imagination went deliciously wild over the myriad ways to let them—my future throng of bubbly wedding guests—eat cake. But if, like me, you’re not headed for matrimony anytime soon, you don’t need a wedding to feast on red velvet; birthdays and “just because” are perfect reasons to get your baker to whip up a treat.
For gorgeous gateaux, savvy couples stop in at the eponymous Katrina Rozelle Pastries and Desserts on Oakland’s College Avenue (there’s also a second location on the plaza in Alamo), where the doyenne of wedding cake transforms buttercream, fondant, and ganache into nuptial bliss. With decorative skills honed over 23 years in business, the California Culinary Academy alum has baking in her blood; her paternal grandmother cooked for the Swedish king and queen, and today Rozelle reigns in the East Bay when it comes to special occasion sweets.
During complimentary tastings, she guides clients through a sumptuous spread of 12 to 15 flavors. A bite of her best-selling Obsession melds chocolate devil’s food with raspberry-flecked chocolate mousse and ganache. Rozelle and her team craft satin, brocade, and gold finishes; hand-pipe delicate lattices and arabesques; and shower each tier with pearls, individually tinted sugar flowers, and fondant ribbons and bows. Splendor comes at a price—$6 to $10 a slice and up—but Rozelle can finesse beauty on a budget as well.
“I suggest smaller cakes and simpler decoration, all while keeping things elegant,” she says. “It’s better to have a lovely, intimate party with family and friends than to spend a fortune on a big bash.” Rozelle doesn’t limit herself to bridal ribbons and bows—she can serve up cakes in the shape of a pink Dior bag for a fashionista’s birthday or a 10-gallon hat for a wannabe cowboy’s graduation.
Over at Torino Baking in Berkeley, another rock star baker, Julie Durkee, is known for delicious whimsy. A natural at her craft, she mastered cream puffs at 11, then studied at Le Cordon Bleu and the California Culinary Academy. Her credits include winning two Food Network Challenges and trekking a five-tier cake for an Indian wedding—an elaborate fuchsia- and marigold-hued confection with Radha and Krishna perched atop—into a remote oceanside location in Marin.
Durkee advises clients to set up a complimentary tasting three to six months in advance; she’ll guide them through a menu ranging from Raspberry Royale white cake laced with raspberry syrup and mascarpone to double chocolate pound cake lavished with bittersweet ganache. At $6.25 a slice, Durkee’s concoctions cost, but she delivers ingenuity in spades. Think pagoda-shaped wedding towers and celebration cakes sculpted into panda bears, Scrabble boards, and race cars—all made with top-of-the-line ingredients like Plugra butter, Tahitian vanilla beans, and Callebaut and Guittard chocolates.
Gourmands with a passion for France head to Masse’s Pastries in Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto, where owners Paul and Marcia Masse run a European-style mom-and-pop bakery redolent with croissant and brioche. Paul, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and longtime pastry chef at the Ritz-Carlton, mans the ovens while Marcia sketches the visual and decorative elements.
The Masses have dreamed up cakes inspired by everything from sailing to steampunk to the architectural heritage of Prague—complete with miniatures of the Charles Bridge and the city’s signature red-tile roofs. Cakes start at $6 a slice. But a Masse cake is as much about substance as it is about style. “We’re food people first,” Marcia says. “Our customers are food-savvy and eager to show off the Bay Area’s bounty.”
At Sweet Adeline Bakeshop in South Berkeley, neighborhood locals cozy up to cafe tables, nibble on slices of cake and pie, and fill the air with the clatter of conversation and coffee cups. “We try to offer delicious and beautiful cakes for a very affordable price,” says owner Jennifer Millar, a Culinary Institute of America grad and veteran Bay Area pastry chef. She seeks out organic ingredients, buys fruit from the Berkeley farmers’ market, and picks cake flowers from her own garden. “I did a wedding two years ago for a local couple and now I’m doing their son’s first-month birthday cake,” she says. “There’s a wonderful sense of community and continuity in that.”
With a Food Network win under her belt, self-schooled cake warrior Cheryl Lew of Montclair Baking in Oakland has conquered many a baking challenge, turning fondant, buttercream, and pulled and blown sugar into shapes both conventional and crazy (for example, nigiri- and maki-shaped cake for a couple who met over sushi). Lew’s panoply of flavors starts at $5.35 a slice and includes the popular pastel-hued Sonata cake with lemon, raspberry, and boysenberry curd, or the chocolate with salted caramel mousse.
Eco-engagement
Environmentally astute couples just may fall in love with True Confections pastry chef Judy Chadwick, a kindred spirit who uses local organic ingredients, sustainable baking products, real plates and silverware for tastings—and a hybrid from a car-share service for delivery. A California Culinary Academy alum, Chadwick has been crafting special event cakes in her North Berkeley commercial kitchen since 1995. Complimentary tastings of the wedding wares include seven samples, among them her hands-down bestseller, Berries & Cream, a summery white cake with vanilla bean, fresh raspberries, and cream. Slices range from $4.50 to $6, and Chadwick is happy to talk about how to keep costs down.
“People are definitely on a budget these days, but simple things like a smaller display cake supplemented by less expensive sheet cakes cuts cost,” she says. As you might expect of a fresh-and-natural chef, Chadwick favors clean, unfussy decor that includes plenty of fresh flowers, but she’s also not afraid to push the envelope—for one Russophile couple, she replicated Moscow’s onion-domed St. Basil’s Cathedral.
White wedding
For a cake to make your grandma proud, visit North Berkeley’s Virginia Bakery, purveyor of traditional butter cookies, bear claws, and classic rosette-bedecked wedding cakes since 1953. The flavor list is short and sweet—chocolate, white, carrot, and applesauce. Slices are affordable at $3.50 and tastings are complimentary with an order. The wedding portfolio teems with colonnades, champagne-glass pillars, and bride-and-groom statuettes, as well as more modern designs.
Ladyfingers Bakery, a pocket-size bakeshop tucked away in the shadow of I-580 in Oakland, cooks up no-nonsense wedding desserts at reasonable prices with slices starting at $4.25. Their famous black bottom—a chocolate cake flecked with chocolate chips and dolloped with cream cheese icing—sells briskly along with homier flavors like ivory, chocolate, banana, lemon, and carrot. Don’t miss the Aloha Coconut with a flaky white coconut topping to tickle the bride-to-be’s tulle- and lace-filled fancies.
Small is beautiful
At Sweets La Petite, self-taught baker Stephanie Bushnell proves that lovely things come in small packages. Her two- and three-tier creations, in crowd-pleasing flavors like chocolate, yellow, vanilla, and red velvet, start at $6 a slice. Working primarily with fondant, she adds drama with layers of raspberry, mango, passion fruit, or pineapple mousse on the inside, and delicate piping and fresh and sugar flowers on the outside. Lager lovers should try Bushnell’s signature Guinness stout confection that uses the famed Irish brew to produce a dense, rich, chocolaty crumb.
When two baking mavens teamed up—one an art director, the other a greeting card designer—EmmaCakes was born. Michelle Lin-Chan and Jennifer Lin-Mantyvaara indulge their clients with culinary marriages of sugar and style. They’ve turned out an ocean-themed cake swimming with handcrafted shells and pearls on tiers of sea blue fondant. Another showstopper, with a swishy skirt of yellow petals, strands of pearls, and a seductive fondant gardenia, calls up a snappy 1920s flapper.
For Bohemian spice, Crixa Cakes in South Berkeley sells Eastern European treats worthy of a Viennese kaffeehaus. Owners Elizabeth Kloian and Zoltan Der fill their bakery shelves with poppyseed pastries and Black Forest tortes straight from their Russian and Hungarian childhoods. Clever party hosts know that Crixa’s one-tier, 12-inch round cakes can satisfy a crowd of 40—for just a little over $100. A bite of the Rigo Jancsi chocolate pound cake with its rum-laced chocolate cream sends the taste buds into Wagnerian rhapsody, while the cocoa-dusted Soprano Tiramisu with strata of espresso-soaked sponge cake and chocolate mousse hits all the right notes.
As my whirlwind bakery tour ends, I scoop up the last crumbs from my plate, breathing a sigh of both pleasure and regret. I’ve hit the end of the sugar trail, but I now know exactly where to head when I’m craving cake, be it for Valentine’s, a birthday fête or, God forbid, one of these days maybe even a wedding.
———————————————
Jeanne Storck, The Monthly’s art critic, never says “no” to cake.
Cakewalk
Braxtons’ Boxes, (510) 708-7089; braxtonsboxes.com.
Cakes by Pari, El Cerrito, (510) 789-3980; cakesbypari.com.
Cakes Made by M.E., 4823 Clarke St., Oakland, (510) 459-0011; cakesmadebyme.com.
Crixa Cakes, 2748 Adeline St., Berkeley, (510) 548-0421; crixacakes.com.
EmmaCakes, Oakland, (925) 353-8333; emmacakes.com.
Hopkins Street Bakery, 1584 Hopkins St., Berkeley, (510) 526-8188; hopkinsbakery.com.
Katrina Rozelle Pastries & Desserts, 5931 College Ave., Oakland, (510) 655-3209; and 215B Alamo Plaza, Alamo, (925) 837-6337; katrinarozelle.com.
La Farine, 6323 College Ave., (510) 654-0338; 4094 Piedmont Ave., (510) 420-1777, and 3411 Fruitvale Ave., (510) 531-7750, all in Oakland; 1820 Solano Ave., Berkeley, (510) 528-2208; lafarine.com.
Ladyfingers, 150 Santa Clara Ave., Oakland, (510) 428-1822; ladyfingersbakery.com.
Masse’s Pastries, 1469 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, (510) 649-1004; massespastries.com.
Montclair Baking, 2220 Mountain Blvd., Oakland, (510) 530-8052; montclairbaking.com.
Sweet Adeline Bakeshop, 3350 Adeline St., Berkeley, (510) 985-7381; sweetadelinebakeshop.com.
Sweets La Petite, 360 Grand Ave., #294, Oakland, (510) 778-4900; sweetslapetite.com.
Taste of Denmark, 3401 Telegraph Ave., Oakland, (510) 420-8889; tastedenmark.com.
Torino Baking, Berkeley, (510) 548-2900; torinobaking.com.
True Confections, Berkeley, (510) 665-9836; trueconfectionscakes.com.
Virginia Bakery, 1690 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, (510) 848-6711; virginiabakery.com.
