Where wedding cakes are concerned, the old saying "if you've seen one, you've seen 'em all" generally holds true. There isn't much variety in the wedding cake industry. It's a traditional sweet and most bakeries don't veer too far off course in their wedding cake offerings. It is definitely a business that needs a good kick in the pants and M. Robin Cakes in Portland, Oregon, is just the bakery to do it! Instead of making run-of-the-mill wedding cakes, owner, baker, and designer Marcella Robin makes these amazing and beautiful entrement cakes, which is a European style cake also known as a torte. It is made with sponge cake and layered with a variety of creams, custards, and mousses. The cake designs are created using a jaconde, which is a decorative sponge cake. The design in not applied to the cake like frosting, but actually baked into the sponge, creating a smooth finish. It is a completely fresh approach to wedding cake design and it makes perfect sense that Marcella is not only a graduate of the Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver, but that she also has a bachelors degree in sculpture. She treats her cake design in much the same way as any traditional artist.
From Marcella: I can’t always predict how a design will “read” on a cake, so a big part of what I do is testing to see whether a design is truly spongeworthy. The tests are never eaten. They get wrapped, labeled, and frozen for inspiration and archiving. Instead of a sketchbook, I have a sketch pile — of spongecake.
Needless to say, I am a huge fan. When I first saw their website, I immediately jotted down the link and wrote the words "so awesome" next to it. You can check it out for yourself, right here.
