And Alpine Bakery gets a lot of orders! Maria said, “Whatever you’re celebrating, we can make a cake for you.” They get orders for weddings, anniversaries, quinceañeras, baptisms, and even funerals. When Maria first started, she said most cakes that were commissioned were pretty traditional and standard but because of all of the cake shows on TV, in recent years she’s been getting more and more requests for more creative, non-traditional cakes. And Maria is up for the challenge. She said she’s never turned down a customer’s cake request and she loves working with the customer to come up with the perfect cake design for their event.
The bulk of the cake decorating in Alpine Bakery is done with whipped cream, butter cream, or fondant icing. Maria said, “My favorite is the fondant, because it’s smoother. The texture is different. It looks clean, and it also holds the cake better and keeps the moisture in.” When it comes to decorating you can choose from a variety of ways to add dimension and flare to your cake. “We do gum paste flowers. We make different shapes, designs, we do a lot of piping, decorations, or figurines.” With so many options, I was curious to know how Maria as an expert decorator would make a cake for herself if she had the chance. She told me, “My favorite cake is a white cake or vanilla cake and it would have a pineapple and custard filling with maybe a whipped cream icing with piping on the sides. And I would decorate it with some light yellow magnolias maybe with a touch of lavender in there. Nothing too busy, I think simple makes it look elegant.”
Maria said that her favorite cakes to make are ones for kids. “They’re more fun. They’re more creative.” She said she has one customer with two kids who has been ordering cakes from Maria for both of them every year since she was first pregnant. “She always comes up with different themes.” Maria has had fun making cakes for them with decorations like legos, clowns, and safari animals. For simple cakes, you’ll want to order them at least 2 days in advance, but for weddings or anything with complicated designs Maria asks that you order your cake at least 2 weeks ahead of the event so that she has time to plan. She said it really helps, too, when customers bring in a picture or sketch of what they have in mind.
So far the most challenging order Maria has received was back in 2008 when a customer asked for a four-tier cake and wanted it to look like pillows stacked on top of each other. What made it difficult, she said, was keeping the edges of the “pillows” from drooping with the weight of the cake and icing. Maria told me, “I had fun making that one. It was a challenge. I wanted to [turn it down, but I thought] ‘I have to try it before I say no.’” She told me that she hopes to get to make a “Topsy Turvy” cake one day, but she hasn’t gotten an order for one yet. “It would be challenging trying to get [the tiers] to stay the way it’s set up.” She said, and if I learned anything from Maria during her interview it is that she loves a challenge.
The post How Will You Decorate Your Perfect Cake? Maria Shares Some of Her Decorating Techniques from our German Bakery. appeared first on The Alpine Village.