The final slice - or maybe not

Yesterday we went to Capitola for what I thought would be the final cake tasting for my cousin's wedding. We already had a good feeling about the local bakery - and we knew this place doesn't deliver to San Jose, where the wedding will be next May - so we were going into it thinking we probably wouldn't go with this bakery.

Then we tasted the buttercream frosting at Gayle's Bakery on Bay Avenue. For anyone who hasn't made buttercream, it is basically made with lots of butter, lots of sugar and whatever flavoring you want to add. I've made it a few times and it is hard to get the balance between creaminess and sweetness right, without going too far.

The buttercream at Gayle's - which can be tasted any day of the week since they sell cake by the slice in their bakery/deli - is almost like eating whipped cream. The secret seems to be the use of pasty cream, which I've never heard of before. It works wonders for a topping that complements any flavor of cake and filling without overwhelming it.

We tried a devil's food cake, vanilla genoise, hazelnut and a lemon cake, with a variety of fillings. All of that didn't really matter once we tried the butter cream and we were sold. The only problem is they don't deliver outside of Santa Cruz County - and a wedding cake is not something we want to entrust to a cousin or friend of family for a two-hour drive across curvy mountain roads.

My cousin vowed to look into refrigerated delivery trucks, so she is still up in the air. Last word from her is that she wants to try out a couple other places in San Jose because now she knows how good a wedding cake can taste. So it looks like one more weekend, at least, will be taken up with wedding duties.

Photo by Melissa Flores
A slice of mocha cake with vanilla buttercream frosting from Gayle's Bakery in Capitola.