You may have noticed that the frequency of new blog posts has diminished a bit over the last few months.  More astute readers may already know the reason for this, but for the rest of you, please know that there are many more great posts in the works, but there’s been a little personal “distraction” that’s prevented me from blogging to my full potential.  That distraction started last fall when Dave proposed to me at Falling Water.  In a matter of weeks, I went from being an abnormal female who didn’t like weddings, to the girl who’s borderline obsessed with planning a perfect one.  Funny how that works!  So lately we’ve been spending a lot of our free time planning, researching, saving, meeting, shopping, and spending….all the things that go along with preparing for the big day.

In an attempt to keep the celebration as “simple” and “intimate” as possible, we selected a venue that would be somewhat all-inclusive, so that all we need to do is show up, get married, and enjoy ourselves.  Even so, there are still a few details that demand our attention, one of them being our wedding cake.  Initially I thought of cupcakes because 1) they are different (not your typical wedding fair), 2) they are adorable, 3) they are absolutely everywhere, so it would be easy to find a great bakery (like Caroline’s Cupcakes, look for a post soon), and 4) you can have as many flavors as you want.  However, on our last visit to the wedding venue, a charming old Tudor-style house turned B&B in West Akron, we agreed that cupcakes would simply not work.  The venue begs for a more traditional wedding cake (sitting on a vintage cake pedestal), so we shifted our attention to bakeries specializing in wedding cakes.

After a short but focused internet search, I came upon The West Side Bakery, located on West Market Street in Akron.  With a beautiful portfolio of cakes online, we knew they had the aesthetic part figured out.  Now to have a taste!  We emailed the bakery for an appointment, and were greeted warmly by the owner, Barb, and her attentive staff.  Barb offers couples two complimentary tastes, but for us, this is a big decision that would require more than the standard tasting.  We carefully selected six tastes, not really knowing what they would look like, but giddy like children to go and find out.

First off, the bakery itself is adorable and won us over quickly.  It is located in a picturesque area of West Akron, super close to our venue.  They have a cozy dining area where you can enjoy your treats with a strong cup of coffee, which they offered us as soon as we walked in the door.

Next we were presented with our samples, a grouping of six darling individual mini-cakes, each one iced and playfully decorated with colorful flowers.

These cakes were so stinking cute it that it was tough for me to dig in.  So I asked my future mother-in-law to do it!  The six flavor/filling combinations we had chosen were: chocolate cake with raspberry cream filling, banana cake with chocolate buttercream, red velvet cake with cream cheese filling, lemon cake with apricot preserves, key lime cake with white chocolate buttercream, and hazelnut torte cake with mocha filling.

After a few nibbles, there was no doubt that we had hit on a winner.  All of the cakes were moist and fresh, plus the white buttercream was devine; light and subtly sweet.  Barb explained later that this is because she starts off with an egg white mixture that gives it its airy quality.  It was perfect.  My favorite cake was the key lime with white chocolate; the refreshing citrus flavor grabs you, plus the color is gorgeous and unique.

West Side Bakery made this decision very easy for us!  It was a pleasure meeting Barb; she was welcoming and receptive to our (slightly scattered) vision.  We are so excited to see what she will create for us!  Our only regret with deciding on a bakery so quickly is that we can’t keep “tasting” at other bakeries.  I could get used to this!