In Mexico City there are bakeries that specialize in cakes. Not just your normal birthday and wedding cakes, but cakes that tower a full story tall with multi layers, fountains, bridges, lights and a scene for every occasion from baptisms to lucha libre wrestling matches. A few years ago we took photos in a bakery which is near the zocolo. The photos from that visit are on this link and worth having a look at.
In Coyoacan, there is a bakery that comes close to the style of the one in Mexico City, but much much smaller. Nevertheless, it has an incredible selection of breads, cookies, cakes, and an array of ‘gelatinas’ – in cups, with fruit, and as icing for cakes like the one in this photo. If you have ever been to your neighbor’s Mexican family birthday party, you’ll see that gelatina is almost always served with your piece of cake.
The pastries are works of art and in the case of the smaller pastries, it is mesmerizing to see hundreds of them lined up together, cut into perfect triangles squares or rounds, decorated with a dollop of cream or a piece of fruit on top. Oh, if they only tasted as good as they look.
As for me, I just love these layered lighted cake towers. There was a time in my life that I would have loved to attempt making something like these cakes. The scalloped edges and colors remind me of an old fashioned kitchen curtain. From afar, the scalloped edges could be crocheted, the roses made of plaster of paris with matching turquoise satin ribbons. Then there’s the lighted bases. Where do they come up with these ideas? You can just imagine barbie dolls or action figures instead of roses – or better yet, coming out of the roses. In the bakery in Mexico city they were in to icicles hanging from the edges of most of the cake towers. Every bakery must have a theme. I guess I should be asking, can you eat these? And where do you begin the cutting?
Here is the link to the slideshow of the bakery in Coyoacan
And the slideshow of the bakery in Mexico City