Do You Need Enough Wedding Cake for Every Guest? | WDP Ep 88

🎧 Listen to learn:

• Whether you need enough wedding cake to serve every guest
• What a kitchen cake is and how it can help serve a larger guest count
• Why flavor should come first when choosing your wedding cake
• How wedding cake tastings help couples find the perfect flavors
• What goes into creating realistic handmade sugar flowers
• Why your wedding cake should be part of your reception design

Do you need enough wedding cake for every guest? In this episode of Wedding Day Podcast, host Sonja Babich, CEO of Iron Diamond Media, sits down with pastry chef and cake designer Kelsey Ryder of Love More Sweets to discuss wedding cake servings, flavor-forward desserts and how couples can turn their cake into a memorable part of their reception design.

After training at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City, Kelsey brought her pastry expertise back home to Omaha, Nebraska, where she combines Midwest charm with the techniques and influences she encountered in New York. She shares how her culinary background shaped her flavor-first approach to wedding cakes, why she considers herself a pastry chef before a cake designer and how her intricate handmade sugar flowers can take several days to create.
The conversation also explores what couples should consider when planning their wedding dessert, from starting with a cake tasting and experimenting with unexpected flavor combinations to supplementing a statement cake with kitchen cakes served behind the scenes. Kelsey explains why couples don't necessarily have to make their display cake do all the work—and why treating the wedding cake as both dessert and décor can create a beautiful centerpiece guests will remember long after the celebration ends.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Wedding Day Podcast with your host Sonia Babbage, CEO of Iron Diamond Media, a leading wedding resource featuring seven localized wedding brands across the country. Hi everybody, Sonia here with Wedding Day Podcast. We're here at the beautiful Lead Lodge in Nebraska. And I'm sitting here with my new friend Kelsey. She's the owner and lead pastry chef of Love More Sweets out of Omaha. And we are gonna chat all things sweet. When we sat down, I noticed your hands, and they're I'm like, what's going on? Yep, this is this is normal. Um, I never have manicured nails or really nice looking hands. I was doing sugar flowers right like maybe an hour before we got here. So So of course, before you came on to the podcast, I was doing my stocking like brides do, like to know everything about you. Yeah. And your flowers literally look real. Thank you. Yeah. And I'm like, that's a sugar flower. Yeah, sometimes people are they they see the wedding cake, and I've actually had someone tell me, like, you need to put like a sign saying these are handmade sugar flowers, because in my eyes, I'm like, oh, I I want them even closer to realistic flowers, but like I guess people are just like astounded. They're like, how are these like edible? And then they then they like break off a piece of flour and then they eat it, and they're like, Oh my gosh. So yeah, like how long does it take to make like I saw a peony, yeah, and it looked completely real. Yes. How long does that take? So peonies, I absolutely love them. I actually have them in my garden, so it's what's really nice, and what I've learned from like other sugar flower artists is you actually if you have like flowers in your garden or um just inspiration photos, I'm taking photos of flowers all the time now. And my husband is just like, again, and zoom in. Yeah, like zoom in. I mean, we went on a family trip um recently, and I probably have like 15 photos of just wildflowers. Um, but uh back to the peonies. So they're one of my favorites, but they're they take a long time because if you see all the like the fluffiness and everything, I have to make those um by boot doing a ball tool, and so I thin it out and then I texture it and then I vein it, and then I glue it on. Well, I don't even think easy to sign. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. So yeah, I usually like one day I'll do the flowers um and then let them dry um after texturizing them and and thinning them and everything like that, and then the next day I'll dust them and then the next day I'll assemble them. So sometimes like a whole assemble of flowers, I would say, like an arrangement, would probably take three to four days. I know you're a mom of a little girl who's two. Yes, and that's you have an amazing supportive husband, which is um like letting you go to New York to follow your dreams. Yeah, not many husbands I feel like would do that. And just like also being a business owner, like how's that like life balance and all the things of being like being a super mom and well thank you. Um every day is is different, definitely. Um, to speak on my husband first. Yeah, I I moved to New York City. We've been together for almost 20 years now. So, um, and married 13. So he always knew I'm I'm this very ambitious person. I'm really gonna do whatever I need to do to chase after my dream. So he was he wasn't surprised that I probably did choose New York City. Um, but because I had my husband at home just completely being my absolute cheerleader, I had to make New York worth it. So I got like the best internship I possibly could, and that's where I learned the art of sugar flowers there. And just having him, he's my now, right now, he's my free employee, is what I like to say. Our most spouses so yeah, he helps me every step of the way. Um, one of the most important things is he just encourages me along the way, just because being a business owner and a mom at the same time, it is difficult. It's absolutely worth it. And ever since having my little girl Annie Rose, um, I have such a why behind what I do and like why I push myself and why I get out of my comfort zone and stuff. But um, yeah, I mean, she's two, she's rambunctious. Um she gets hurt. I mean, she gets bumped and bruised all the time, like she's just running into everything, falling off of stuff. Um, and uh so right now we have her go to daycare. Um, that really helps out on those days. I'm like ultra productive. Um, but yeah, I mean, ever since she's having her and then with Anthony, we're just kind of like a little business team together. So that's so sweet. Yeah. My mom would always say, I never collected a paycheck in 40 years. So working in the dental office. But um, yeah, you know, they're your biggest cheerleader and supporter. But like you said, those days that she's at daycare, a lot of like, you know, listeners of engaged couples, like we have to multitask, right? Yeah, follow your dreams and make their dreams come true. So, yeah, she's yeah, she and she's there every step of the way, and that's one thing I really love is that she's able to see me chase after a dream um that I've had for a many, many years, and that I would I did. I moved to New York City and I, you know, I invested my time, my money, family time, everything into that. Um, before she came, but now that she's here, she's she's able just to be my little like pastry chef along the way. Yeah, she fills your bucket up too. Absolutely. And she gets to lift the bucket. Yeah, she gets she she was not a baby that did not have sugar at like four. She had sugar probably like around 10 months old. We follow the chocolate rules. Yeah, we did not. No, she was getting homemade caramel, I mean, really good stuff for sure, but yeah, she she's just my little mini me, I would say. Um, and uh just having her just has made it so worth it. And it's so awesome. Yeah, I'm so happy for you. Thank you. Okay, so let's like dive in a little bit back a little bit from your experience. So you got your pastry chef culinary in New York. Yes. And why did you choose New York? Like, why was that the place you wanted to go? Um, well, uh because you're from Omaha. Yep. Born and raised in Omaha. Um, I believe Husker Red is what people say. You have to be a true Husker fan if you live in Nebraska. Um, but actually, do you know the movie Julia and Ju uh Julie and Julia? Yeah. So such a good show. Yeah. So I watched I watched that when I think it first, yeah, when it first came out, probably when I was a high school or middle school. And literally it was always my dream to move to New York City and kind of have that experience. Um, and then in Omaha, there is like Metro Community College, and they have a wonderful like um community program for uh culinary arts. I actually did that as a dual enrollment in high school, and then I kind of got out of it and went into like career-wise, um, just corporate America for a little bit, and then I decided New York because that's the food capital of the world. Like so much, so many like just different cultures there, different food variations, um, and then also it's so different from Omaha that I just kind of wanted that experience. Like um, one of my favorite shows is Seinfeld. I absolutely no soup for you. Sorry, yeah, no soup for you. Or one of my favorites is like Kramer. He has like he has the the screen and he has the wind chime, and he's like making kind of like a backyard. So I've always had that because I'm from Nebraska, but I wanted that New York experience. So and how many years were you there? I was there for actually just one year. So I was married at the time, still married. Um, but uh I was 28 years old. So I I was trying to understand that. So your husband totally supported you to say go follow your dream. Oh yeah, yeah, he was my biggest support. Um, even when I was like, he first I was like, is there anything closer? Like maybe Chicago or you know, like something like six hours away, Kansas City. Um, and then he just he understood that I wanted to really separate myself in the Omaha market and the Midwest market, and New York is just that it area, so oh my goodness. Well, you can tell by your work that you've got the experience, yeah. So um that was a year program, and but you like you like to be known as a pastry chef versus like a cake designer. Yes, and can you like spell what the difference is to like the listener? Because they're like, what's the difference? But of course, some a lot of people do know, but some people don't. Yeah. Well, so I mean pastry chef first um because I just love to eat. I love food in general. Um, I grew up, um, it's actually I think on my bio on my website where it talks about I used to make a single bowl of cookie dough, not edible, but just normal cookie dough in middle school after school and just eat it all myself. Like I would hide the ball. Yeah, it's a home. Yeah, like it was a personal bowl of my own little cookie dough that I would eat. So I'm such a sweets person, and then just baking in general um was always kind of just with me. So I really love flavor forward first. Um, and so like with my pastry chef background, I had chefs from India, I had chefs from Austria, France, um, the United States. So I had like chefs from all over that I was really able to capture the complexities and the flavor profiles of other cultures. Yes. And like in the in the Nebraska, and especially the Midwest, you don't get that. You don't get the melting. Yeah. The most fancy flavor is marble or red velvet, which is delicious. Or carrot cake. Yeah, or carrot cake. Yeah, yeah. If you want to put some coconut and maybe some nuts in, like that's for carrot cake, but like I do a Brazilian carrot cake actually. So I do a carrot cake, but it's Brazilian, so it's a difference. It's um it's more carrot forward, and you use like a chocolate honey ganache to go with it to kind of counteract the sweetness of the carrot cake itself, and so like that richness with the carrot cake is just delicious. And there's there really isn't like you can put coconut in it, but there like really isn't anything else, like it's a very carrot forward cake. Um, so that's like really shines, and that's what I like to do with flavors, is I like to have each flavor shine and add like a certain depth that you just wouldn't find with like maybe something down the street, right? So when you meet a client and they're starting their cake their journey with designing their beautiful wedding day cake, yeah. Where do you start? Do you start by the flavor first, like the flavor profile, or do you start with the design first? Absolutely the flavor profile. So I have a tasting menu of about 15 to 20 different paired cake flavors that I have tested myself. I've had family members, friends, even clients test themselves. Um, like I I work with a certain wedding planner in Omaha. Um, it's a it's a team of three women, and um, I just brought over some samples for them of a new tasting menu and just kind of get some feedback. So that's where I start first because I think that's the most important is you can have something very beautiful, but if it doesn't taste great, like that kind of sucks. So, okay, let's go to your tasting menu because uh do you have a brick and mortar? I actually don't know this. No, I don't have a brick and mortar. I um so the home that we bought actually like right before I moved to New York, um, it has a s a separate kitchen in the basement. Yeah. So a completely separate kitchen, pantry, everything. And it's all approved, all that. Yes. I'm just like some people some I think the listeners, especially engaged couples, they like, oh, you cook out of your home? But like it's actually like a registered, like, yeah, completely like food safety certificated like kitchen. Like it's all kosher. Um but how do you do the tastings then? Like, how do you like you said you have a tasting menu? Because I'm like, you want it to be as probably fresh as possible, and it's just a you're just a one-woman show. Yeah. So how do you do that? Um, well, actually, the cake um fresh is great. Yeah, but a lot of cake, if you put it in the freezer, it actually gets moist more over time. Oh, really? So cake stays really good and is actually better once it's frozen, and so I'll make the tasting flavor. Yeah, it's like it still tastes really good. Yeah, as long as you like wrap it correctly and everything like that, you're good. But you never want to put it in the fridge, fridge will dry stuff out. But if you wrap it correctly and put it in the freezer for a little bit, you're completely fine. So I make the flavors and um I have those made in advance, and sometimes, like, if somebody wants something specific, I'll just make that as well. Like, I just recently did a tasting um that was in person, and they wanted a milfruit cake. And a milfoy cake is it's a French pastry, and it's laminated puff pastry, like rolled over in like laminated with butter multiple times, um, and then you roll that out and you stack it up like four levels high with pastry cream in between. So I made that because that doesn't last, and I know that. So I made that like a day or two in advance, right? So, yeah, sometimes I have stuff already pre-made, and then sometimes like if I need to make something a couple days in advance, I'll do that as well. Are you liking the tiramisu cake these days? That's a big fat or a trendy. It is, it is. I love it's my favorite dessert. Oh yeah. My husband's mom, it's her favorite dessert. Um, so I've made tiramisu many times. Um, I don't have a tiramisu like regular that you would probably get like at a restaurant, but I do have a tiramasu, mocha tiramisu cake. And it has been everybody's favorite recently. Mocha tiramisu cake. So why doesn't we get a cake versus a traditional tiramisu? So a rush lady fingers? Yes. Yep, so a traditional you know yourself. It's my favorite. So it's it's traditionally it's made with ladyfingers, and it's this is a cake style, so it has everything the same except for those ladyfingers, and but honestly, the the sponge itself it does taste a lot somewhere to Ladyfingers. Yeah. So it's just not made in that way. It's made as a cake way, but you I've had people tell me like you can't even tell the difference. Yeah, so when you do the cake, then is it like more like a sheet cake than when you like the cake? No, it's a tier, it's a tiered cake. Oh, yeah. I gotta see this. Yeah. So I'll go to that. Yeah. Um okay, you just showed me a picture of a wedding that is so crazy. You how many cakes it was it? All the little sculptures, and everyone was different. Yeah, so there was technically there's four pedestals with cakes on them. Um, one had two tiers, and then I think there was another two tiers, so altogether it was six tiers. So it was about 200 to 250 people. It was insane. And this just also reminds like the listener that cakes are a decoration, they're part of the design of a wedding day. To like don't put it in a corner, like they say, exactly as he don't put the baby in a corner. Yes, um, have its moment, yeah, because everybody also wants to see where's the cake, you know. Yeah. Well, like for me, so I got married 13 years ago, and I did that. I put the baby in the corner, I did a three-tier cake with synthetic uh sugar flowers on it. It was like a coworker's grandma's of my mom, and so like I didn't even do a tasting. So, because at the time I just I didn't realize the significance behind a wedding cake. Um, I would totally do it differently today. And so, one thing I tell people is I'm not just a baker, I'm a pastry chef first, but also I'm a cake designer, and what you're gonna get from me is like a centerpiece, it's gonna be unique to you, and it's gonna be different than any other wedding cake you've seen. And when I kind of explain the value behind that to people, they they definitely understand because um I've heard that one of the like the second most looked-at photos of your wedding is the traditional cake cutting photo. It is true, yeah. It is so true. So, why wouldn't you want like sugar flowers? Like, you know, like people are just impressed by it. Look legit, they look completely real. Yeah, just by all the love that you put into those too. Like, look at your hands, they're so dyed. Yep. Dyed blue, green, I mean every which way, so. Okay, so you do the display cake, which you're known for with everything, and especially the sugar flowers. Then do you promote sheet cakes where you're like serving for a guest, or do you do all display like tier cakes usually? Um, so the cakes that I do, there they are displayed, but they also are real tiers as well. Um, I do she cakes, I do a variation, it's called kitchen cakes. So instead of like a sheet cake where it's just cake and then buttercream on top, which is traditionally a sheet cake, I'll do a kitchen cake, which is three layers of cake and then two layers of filling. So it matches pretty much exactly what you're getting for your wedding. It just doesn't have the design around it because it's always served in the back. It's always served in the back. Yeah. Never put a sheet cake out with the cake. It never looks good. So I worked weddings and I um was a banquet server back in the day. And it's like, okay, it's dinner service is halfway through. That's when you're already starting to cut the cake in the back. Yeah, oh yeah. And it's it's a it's a like you have to have a math. Like, yes, go, go, and then you're putting all the cake plates out. Yeah, yeah. Each each slice is about like one and a half to two inches wide and long and stuff. Um, so that's the serving amount. Um, educate the team because it being a three-tier. Yeah, so sometimes I have like a diagram I can show them like on a piece of paper and just like show them how to do it. Or I'll do it myself in person. I don't want to do that. I love making the cake, but when it comes to just cutting it, I'm not the best at it. That's educatoring and serving staff. Yeah, do it for a living. Yeah. Just let them do it. But if it's a new cake, like you come in, you're like, oh yeah, this is how you do it. Yeah. Yeah, especially like if it's a sculpted cake style, you know, and it was like sculpted around and it's not a traditional just one slice, and then you slice it in half. It's pretty it's kind of difficult, so I'll just show them just to make sure everything is good for the couple. Okay, I have a game. Give me a second. I have to pull it up. My team put some questions, and it's this or that. Oh, okay. Um, so here we go. Okay, there's six six questions. Okay. You got this. Alright, buttercream or fondant? Fondant. Fondant. Yeah. People say differently all the time. I made it so in the accent. Oh, you're good, you're good. Favorite flower to um to recreate in sugar. I love ranunculus or sweet peas.

unknown 19:19

Mmm.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

More petals the better, I guess. I guess so. Um, favorite wedding cake flavor you've ever made? Um, I really love um this coconut candy bar. Um, it's like it's a coke, it's a toasted coconut sponge, chocolate ganache, sticky coconut filling, German buttercream, which has pastry cream whipped into it, which is so velvety and like custardy. Um, that is like one of my favorites.

unknown 19:48

Ugh. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

I'm not watering, huh? I know. I'm like, yeah, I'm like, I'm gonna try that tomorrow. Um okay, most challenging flower you've ever created. Um the rose. The the rose is just very, it's very traditional. Everybody knows exactly what it looks like. And it's it every single rose has like a certain structure to it. And as it blooms out, you kind of need like petals to to stay, but like also be glued on, and those break so easily. Yeah. So it is I make very I make a lot of extras because it's very disheartening when something breaks. But since I made extras, I don't have to worry about it. So my gosh, I can't even imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Alright, um, two more fruit filling or chocolate? Oh, chocolate. Oh. Any day, anytime. Yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Especially my chocolate cake, the Dutch chocolate, has this bitterness and just like this richness that you get. It is so bowl right now. Yes, I understand that. I used to think my favorite food was frosting. Oh, I love that. You had cooked, though, I'm like, oh, give me a bowl of frosting. Yeah, well, like graham crackers dipped into like a bowl of fashion. Yeah. Yes. I get it. Um, okay, last one is favorite pastry. Um, a croissant.

unknown 21:09

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Yep. I've made them homemade. Um, I had like a heater on top of the table because I don't have like a traditional proofing thing, but it was just bringing my family. So I had like a heater on top, it was under a bag, took forever, but it was absolutely worth it. Oh, a good croissant. Yeah. Like a good latte. Yeah, well, like we had it with um, if if you know Portillos from Chicago, um, it's like Italian sliced beef with like a cheese sauce over it. It's delicious. On this croissant, you gain like a hundred pounds, but it is absolutely worth it. No, not in your world. No, especially as a baker, they are not. My husband is always like, Can you stop feeding me cake? Like, he needs to be your taste test. He does, and he absolutely loves it, yeah. Yeah, what I read before you know meeting you today, like he sounds so supportive of your dreams and you being a mom too of a little girl with Annie Rose, yeah, and being a business owner. So it's just awesome to finally meet you and that's a wrap. You did great. Thank you. Thanks, everybody, for tuning to lady today.