Let Me Eat Cake
By Katy Budge
The Cakery … the name is simple, the creations sublime.
Whether you want a festive sheet cake for a child’s birthday, a collection of capricious cupcakes, or the wedding cake of your dreams, The Cakery’s daughter/mother team of Yarrow Morse and Linda Crawford find a way to make the edible art happen.
Accolades for their creations include being named among the best wedding cakes in the country three years running in The Knot, a wedding trade magazine that is considered the bible of the industry.
If the business name is familiar, it’s because Yarrow Morse opened a bakery/deli under that name in San Luis Obispo about five years ago. The Cakery quickly became a hit with anyone seeking inventive sandwiches, freshly baked breads, and wedding cakes, “but it was growing into two different businesses that were really too much for one person,” says Morse. “It wasn’t fair to the retail side of it, and it wasn’t fair to the cakes. It had become two separate pieces that needed their own direction.”
The bakery/deli still exists at the same location under the name “Breads and Moore,” but as of January 1, 2010, The Cakery became all about cakes. As Crawford explains, the move was “part of a bigger concept, a more sustainable concept — to downsize and simplify and create a cottage community where we can live and work.” For example, though The Cakery may not have x-amount of full-time employees, they have a reliable pool of folks they can call upon for various tasks as the work ebbs and flows.
In developing a cake for anyone’s special event, Morse sits down with them to process their thoughts – their visions, color schemes, themes, etc. – and draws up preliminary sketches.
“Then do a tasting, usually starting with eight flavors.” These are various combinations of cake (devil’s food, vanilla chiffon, carrot, cheesecake and white cake) topped with various icings (raspberry marmalade, lemon curd, cream cheese, chocolate buttercream, mocha buttercream), all made from scratch with quality ingredients.
After determining the taste elements, Morse draws up detailed sketches as the concept is finalized, ideally at least six months before the event. Production of the cake is based upon delivery date. Though they might bake and fill a cake a couple days before, “we don’t ice it until the day before; then it spends the night in the walk-in refrigerator, and we deliver it already set up.”
For an idea of what actually gets delivered, take a look at the “Gallery” page of www.slocakery.com. The photo portfolio showcases elegant icing details, whimsical chocolate delights, cascades of edible flowers, winery-themed cakes, an art deco masterpiece, a cupcake tower, and cakes shaped like everything from a guitar to a French Provincial vase, to a bottle of Patron tequila, to a Chumash basket. The possibilities seem endless, limited only by imagination, certainly by not the combined talents of The Cakery crew.
In developing the cake creations, Morse relies on her extensive experience in the worlds of baking and visual arts. She worked several years at The Buttery (a gourmet bakery in
Santa Cruz, and partial inspiration for the name of The Cakery), honed her craft as an apprentice under two master bakers, and focused her artistic eye with a BFA degree in photography from San Francisco’s Academy of Fine Art.
Linda Crawford is certainly no stranger to the world of food either, having owned and operated a health food store in Santa Cruz in the 1970s. With such a background and armed with a commitment to sustainable communities, she set out to source locally produced ingredients to use at The Cakery.
Obviously, farmers’ markets offered a bounty of seasonally fresh fruit, nuts and the like, but Crawford was surprised at the relative lack of everything else, especially in a region that used to be so rich in dairy production.
Local eggs are available at some markets, but at nowhere near the scale of production The Cakery needs, and some attempts of growing local wheat are in the works. Crawford continues trying to source local products whenever possible.
The Cakery’s consultation office is based in Templeton, (805) 369-0200, www.slocakery.com.
