Layers Design Studio and Cake Divas

[Pei]

I picked up sample boxes of wedding cake from these two bakeries today and thought others might like to see what that's all about.

Pictures of sample boxes of cake here: http://www.chezpei.com/2007/06/layers...

Normally, the sample boxes would be given at a lengthy consultation. But I told the owner at each place that I'm not ready to decide on a design and size of my cake. I'm just doing an initial comparison to see whose bakery I like better because they are the two vendors used at my reception site (Casa Del Mar) and I wanted to decide which vendor I liked better or if it was worth it to me to go elsewhere.

I'm not crossing out the possibility of going elsewhere, but between the two the winner for me is Cake Divas. Reasons (some obviously more important than others):

-quicker and more consistent return calls over the last few weeks, when I made a few initial calls and asked some questions
-open more days of the week
-friendlier staff. I might have simply caught Layers on a busy day--they certainly weren't unfriendly, just brusque. But the people at Cake Divas were incredibly friendly and helpful and did not rush me.
-more appealing flavors, but of course that's personal preference
-less sugary cakes, which is a huge deal for me. If I could go with any bakery and didn't have to consider that hotel-approved vendors are a little cheaper, I would get the Susina Berry Blossom cake that some people call bland but I call perfect.
-distance. Cake Divas in Culver City is much closer to me than Layers in Sherman Oaks.

More than anything, I liked the cakes better. The flavors I liked/found most interesting so far are:
-lemon cake with passion fruit mousse! So far this is my favorite combination, and I haven't seen many bakeries do it.
-fluffy almond cake with almond mousse! They didn't have this in the sample box today, but I plan to get a hold of a slice at some point because it sounds fantastic.

Anyone have thoughts, or Cake Divas favorites?

FYI, both places charge $8+ a slice, so they are expensive cakes. But for me to bring a cheaper cake (Asian bakery, $4 or under a slice) I woul have to agree to a huge slicing fee at the hotel so it becomes not so worth it anyway. Otherwise I couldn't afford to even consider these places!

Cake Divas also does groom's cakes (20-30 servings) starting at $150 in fun shapes. Some she said to me were in the shape of a blackberry, a moose with antlers, a beer keg, and whatever else people can think of.

[J.L.]

Mrs. J.L. and I used Cake Divas for our wedding reception in 2003 - they were professional, on-time, and the cake looked exactly as advertised when it was set up. What's more, the cake tasted even better than the already excellent sample we had tried earlier.

They also baked us a "top layer" cake especially for our 1-year anniversary (so we wouldn't have to eat year-old freezer-burnt cake!

Needless to say, we were pleased as pie. Go with Cake Divas.

[mar52]

Cake Divas!

We had a party for 75 people this past Sunday and Cake Divas made the cake for us.

We told them that we were using sunflowers throughout the room and they said we'd be happy with what they did.

We were more than happy, we were stunned it looked so real. Gorgeous!

Then there was the way it tasted. OMG!

Moist yellow cake with a lemon curd filling. The frosting was a chocolate ganache.

They delivered it to the hotel and everything was perfect.

Put those flavors together and everyone was humming it was so good.

I'll use them again and again their cake was so good.