Cake Alchemy
“the cake looked so real – Lauri even used a design showcasing the newest helment for this season.”
“The dulce de leche and cream cheese filling was divine!”
“We used the groom's cake for our rehearsal dinner dessert, and I'm not kidding when I say everyone's jaws dropped.”
Cake Alchemy
Delivery: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Price range.
$$$ Price range Pricey
3 reviews
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Cake Alchemy produces such lovely looking cakes. They do simpler wedding cakes, but I say their talent comes from modeling objects, animals, etc. in sugar! Besides looking good, they're also really tasty and moist.
I am now officially on hiatus from wedding-related television, but there was a time, oh not-too-long-ago when I was a marathon wedding show-viewer. And in that time not too long ago I watched Amazing Wedding Cakes all the freaking time. And I fell in LOVE with Lauri and her no-frills, no-bs attitude (and the cakes did look pretty awesome, too).
But alas, my reception hall had an in-house baker to make our wedding cake (and much as I would love to say that I'm so loaded, I can afford to say "screw you" to free cake, I have not yet hit it big). AHA! A loophole – the reception hall would make our wedding cake, but what of the Groom's Cake I would surprise my husband with? Therein lay my chance ….
My cousin and I made the voyage downtown to Cake Alchemy. The building is pretty unassuming from the outside, but once you step into the room where all the magic happens, you're greeted by oh-so-beautiful cakes. We sampled five different types of cakes, fillings and icings. Cousin and I fell IN LOVE with the red velvet cake with passion fruit curd and cream cheese combo (more on that later), but since husband likes chocolate and peanut butter, that is what we went with. For the briefest of moments, I contemplated putting bacon in there and Lauri was so freaking pysched about that. Ultimately, we decided that not all wedding guests would share the same penchant for the chocolate-peanut butter-bacon combo that we did.
On the day of the wedding, I squeeled in glee when I finally saw the cake: Lauri covered it in wood paneling fondant and created a sugar picture frame into which she put four of my husband's favorite baseball cards (all edible). People were astounded. My husband panicked thinking I had put his REAL cards into a cake. The true test was yet upon us. They cut a piece for my husband. JACKPOT!!! It was amazing. The peanut butter had been stirred into the batter, making the resulting cake moist, creamy, rich and decadent.
If you read my review of Lulu's Cake Botique, you'll hear my account of what I now affectionately call "The Birthday Cake Fiasco" … I cannot thank Lauri and Kelsey enough for making my 30th birthday cake with TWO DAYS notice exactly as I wanted it – the combination of red velvet, passion fruit, and cream cheese frosting was nothing short of magical.
If you don't have a need for cake … find one. If there's no occasion to celebrate … make up one. But for God's sake, run to Cake Alchemy and try their cake!!
We worked with Lauri on our recent wedding, and I have to say, the experience from start to finish was fantastic! We found Lauri on Yelp and other wedding cake review sites, and she definitely lived up to her glowing reviews!
– Tasting: Lauri allowed us to schedule it for the night before Thanksgiving (I'd called earlier in the day), when I panicked and suddenly realized we didn't like our caterer's pre-assigned cake option. She worked with our schedule (we were married in NYC and live in LA) to fit us in under extremely short notice. Not only that, she was very pleasant and already had samples waiting for us when we arrived. Her cake samples were awesome – moist and airy, with creamy but not over-buttery frosting (my favorite part of any cake). We found we liked flavors we never thought we would! We selected our flavors and tiers that night, but Lauri let us know we could certainly customize down the road.
– Design process: While we first thought we wanted simple cakes that matched our invitations, as time went on, my fiancé decided we should go more elaborate. He's from India and I'm from NYC, and he decided he it'd be cool to show our two cultures coming together. After many changes of our mind of our vision – of which Lauri was happy to work with each time and very friendly, even as the wedding drew quite close – we ultimately decided we'd like a mix of Indian heroes/figures and well-known structures, as well as the same for NYC. The Indian ones would go down one side of the cake (one for each of the three tiers), and the NYC ones would run parallel on the other side of the cake. With no more than this as direction, Lauri created an absolutely amazing sketched design. After one minor tweak, we went with it! For the groom's cake, my husband had gone back and forth on his theme, and ultimately wanted it to represent our new home together in Santa Monica. All we told her was to include the two of us and the Santa Monica Pier. After asking us for a few pictures of ourselves and sending her our wedding website (in which we had many shots of us at Stanford games in Stanford shirts), we were extremely pleased with her artwork.
– Cakes: Lauri wasn't pushy on payment upfront, allowing us to pay when we picked up the cakes with no deposit in advance. They certainly weren't the cheapest cakes, but they were so personally and intimately crafted, we felt it was worth the price tag. We used the groom's cake for our rehearsal dinner dessert, and I'm not kidding when I say everyone's jaws dropped. The resemblance to my husband and me was phenomenal, as was the full structure of the Santa Monica pier. It was the talk of the night. The following day at the wedding, she'd done an equally impressive job on the wedding cake. I don't usually post pictures, but these were too good not to post.
Thank you Lauri for being so easy to work with and for your fantastic pieces of art that you made – they were such special additions to our wedding!