Cove Cakes
Nope. This is not a photo of a bouquet of roses. But uber-baker Karen Tyler of Cove Cakes, is used to fooling the eye. After completing two years of culinary school, and feeling particularly tested by the obligatory pastry classes, she dove into cake baking as a personal challenge and found her calling. Many, many exquisitely executed sugar flowers later, Karen is an expert at Rococo-inspired floral cake toppers.
Her cakes are stunning, literally, and quite delicious. Suffice to say, we lapped up her tastings: a rich, chocolate cake with a dense crumb frosted with French rum buttercream and a vanilla Genoise infused with Cointreau. She chooses her ingredients carefully and they’re all organic, down to her signature marzipan-flavored fondant. The hand-painted sugar cake toppers can take up to three weeks to make and Karen only produces a couple of cakes per month, so plan ahead. Karen’s elegant cakes evoke French Country, Asian or Middle Eastern designs, but frankly, she can make anything.
