The Chopping Block Cooking & Wine Blog

Choose A Wedding Cake With Me

Written by Katie | Jan 23, 2025 8:13:56 PM

 

The past year has been an exciting, fun, and challenging one for me. One specific event that happened last year was being proposed to by my now-fiancé. This was and remains to be one of my favorite memories not only of the past year, but my entire adult life thus far. Though our engagement has been wonderful in countless ways, it has also brought a lot of challenges, including the planning of our wedding. This is not because of the efforts of scheduling tours, tastings, event set-ups or anything notable on paper, rather I’m plagued with the inability to ever make and stick with a decision.

After months of decision making, we are finally coming to an end with only a few important details to sort out. A few weeks ago, my fiancé and my parents visited us in Chicago to hammer out a few last-minute things on our to-do list. One of these was choosing our wedding cake! At this point, I was ready to order a few huge Costco-sized sheet cakes and call it a day, because in my opinion, people don’t really pay attention to cake that much anyway, right? My mother promptly informed me that I was very wrong and insisted on scheduling multiple cake tastings over several days at several different bakeries. I was dreading dragging our families around the city to try cake after cake after cake, when I am not really a fan of sweets in the first place!

We came to a happy compromise: my fiancée and I were to choose a bakery of our choice and take it from there. This decision was one that came extremely easy to me. The best (in our opinion) bakery in Chicago is Roeser’s Bakery, one of the oldest bakeries in Chicago. It has been open since 1911, and just happens to be conveniently located down the street from where we live.

We gave the bakery a call hoping to set up a formal tasting, and were pleasantly surprised to learn that they didn’t have formal tastings. Instead, we got to choose six different cake flavors along with six fillings to try. They would cut tiny pieces of each, put them in a box, and send us on our way to try at our leisure. After we chose, we just needed to call them and let them know what combination we chose, and when we needed the cakes done by. Easy-peasy, no-hassle, perfect for us. The following are our flavor sample choices, and what we thought of them!

Round 1: Pound Cake and Chocolate Mousse

  • Cake was a bit dry, but flavor was present without being overwhelming.
  • Mousse was really rich, but very light.
  • The mousse tasted like a thick pudding more than a frosting.

Round 2: Banana Cake and Buttercream

  • Cake was moist.
  • Banana was visible in the cake, which provided a more natural banana flavor which is very pleasant.
  • Buttercream was rich and fluffy but a tad mealy.

Round 3: Vanilla Sponge and Lemon Curd

  • Cake was super light.
  • Lemon curd was sweet and not too tart.
  • Lemon was great on this because the subtle vanilla of the really let the brightness of lemon come through.

Round 4: Chocolate Cake and Raspberry filling

  • The chocolate was not too heavy or dense.
  • Raspberry filling was very gelatin-like rather than jelly/jam-like and some found it unpleasant.

Round 5: Marble Cake and Strawberry filling

  • Marble cake was dense but not dry like the pound cake.
  • Marble cake was more vanilla-y than chocolate-y.
  • Awesome flavor in the cake that let the strawberry shine through.
  • Loved the strawberry – super refreshing.

Round 6: Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting

  • Cake is super moist, and not dense or heavy at all.
  • Carrot cake only had carrot, no nuts or fruit of any kind.
  • Cream cheese was sweet and creamy with a nice subtle saltiness.

Here are our rankings from 1-5 (1 being our least favorite, and 5 being our favorite):

  1. Chocolate Cake Raspberry filling
  2. Pound Cake with Chocolate Mousse
  3. Banana Cake and Buttercream AND Marble Cake and Strawberry Filling
  4. Vanilla Sponge and Lemon Curd
  5. Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting

Though all the cakes were delicious, there was a clear winner for us. The carrot cake and cream cheese blew all other cakes out of the water. This carrot cake has a great balance of sweet and spice, the cake is rich without being overly sugary. Carrot cake might seem like a strange one to choose for a wedding cake, but to me it has a wholesome and nostalgic feel, and I associate it with family gatherings and celebration. Carrot cake is indulgent and homey at the same time, and this is what makes us love it so much!

Though the process of making choices for such a big day has been daunting and frustrating a lot of times, Roeser’s version of cake tasting made it fun, easy, laid-back, and enjoyable. I 100% recommend Roeser’s Bakery for all things sweet and hope you all enjoyed picking our cake with us!

If you enjoy baking, check out these upcoming classes to satisfy your sweet tooth:

 
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