M. Robin Cakes

Where wedding cakes are concerned, the old saying "if you've seen one, you've seen 'em all" generally holds true. There isn't much variety in the wedding cake industry. It's a traditional sweet and most bakeries don't veer too far off course in their wedding cake offerings. It is definitely a business that needs a good kick in the pants and M. Robin Cakes in Portland, Oregon, is just the bakery to do it! Instead of making run-of-the-mill wedding cakes, owner, baker, and designer Marcella Robin makes these amazing and beautiful entrement cakes, which is a European style cake also known as a torte. It is made with sponge cake and layered with a variety of creams, custards, and mousses. The cake designs are created using a jaconde, which is a decorative sponge cake. The design in not applied to the cake like frosting, but actually baked into the sponge, creating a smooth finish. It is a completely fresh approach to wedding cake design and it makes perfect sense that Marcella is not only a graduate of the Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver, but that she also has a bachelors degree in sculpture. She treats her cake design in much the same way as any traditional artist.

From Marcella:  I can’t always predict how a design will “read” on a cake, so a big part of what I do is testing to see whether a design is truly spongeworthy. The tests are never eaten. They get wrapped, labeled, and frozen for inspiration and archiving. Instead of a sketchbook, I have a sketch pile — of spongecake.

Needless to say, I am a huge fan. When I first saw their website, I immediately jotted down the link and wrote the words "so awesome" next to it. You can check it out for yourself, right here.