Anatomy Of A Cake Tasting

It's wedding season, and yours truly has decided to take the plunge. As you might imagine, cake is one of the reasons I get up in the morning, so I've been having all kinds of wonderful daydreams about a beautiful, scrumptious wedding cake.

I'm not fond of fondant; I like a decadent buttercream that's edible through and through. So, when choosing our vendor, I approached the Queen of Meringue Buttercream Herself: Sarabeth Levine. Sarabeth prides herself on her smooth, rich buttercream, which has the visual perfection of fondant without the waxy texture.

Sarabeth does all cake tastings in her Chelsea Market bakery. It's difficult not to be tempted by the goodies at the counter, and as I waited for our appointment last week, I collected a peach tart, chocolate-chip cookies, blueberry-corn muffins, brownies and a "Sarabeth's Famous Grilled Cheese Sandwich." Then, before I could do any more damage, Sarabeth strode out in a white coat and brought me into the kitchen. She plopped several jars onto a large wooden table, and then brought out some small discs of yellow genoise.

"Um, Sarabeth," I said meekly, "weren't we doing a chocolate cake?" "Chocolate wedding cake is too heavy," she remarked. "Although, I do make a rich, chocolate chocolate truffle cake... but you'll love this, try what I have here." I trusted her implicitly and abandoned my wild ideas for five different tiers of cake (hazelnut mousse! raspberry mousse! etc.).

The jars contained pure buttercream, Callebaut chocolate truffle, chocolate espresso truffle, homemade marmalade, and Sarabeth's famous strawberry-raspberry preserves. Sarabeth slathered the moist genoise with layers of buttercream, marmalade, and a mixture of the chocolate and chocolate espresso truffle. (She had me try the chocolate with and without the added coffee accent; we both agreed that the coffee brought the chocolate truffle to the next rich level.) She then added two more layers of genoise, and put a metal cylinder over the delicious mini-layer cake to shape it. She cut a piece for me, and I was on cloud nine. I could barely concentrate as she explained how she would add a bit of orange juice to the buttercream to complement the marmalade in the filling, and how she always added a bit of buttercream between the layers of cake.

To ensure that I was happy with my decision (apparently, only one in ten people chooses chocolate-orange; many more choose lemon), I was also asked to try the chocolate-strawberry-raspberry combination. Although this was delightful as well, the slight tartness of the marmalade so expertly complemented the rich chocolate truffle as to make up my mind.

Sarabeth then packed up little containers of all the components so that my mother and my intended could taste each of them separately. (She is truly a woman passionate about her ingredients!) We then went into her back office to speak about cake decorations, but all I could think about was that chocolate-coffee-orange-buttercream filling...

Sarabeth's Bakery: Chelsea Market, 75 Ninth Ave., (212) 989-2424.