Wedding Cake Drama

Unconventional Desserts Are Stealing the Show —

By Jailyn Marcel // Feb 3, 2016

Photography Max Burkhalter

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Maple & Love proprietor Lisa Driver drew her inspiration from a painting for this colorful wedding cake.

Maple & Love proprietor Lisa Driver drew inspiration from a painting for this colorful wedding cake.

Maple & Love knows color.

Maple & Love mixes it up.

Maple & Love proprietor Lisa Driver

If you're not a fan of wedding cake, opt for a tiered donut cake like this one from Hugs & Donuts.

Hugs & Donuts thinks outside the box.

Hugs & Donuts proprietor Matt Opaleski

Hugs & Donuts is a hands-on enterprise.

We doubt there's a cooler way to express love on your wedding day than with macarons that spell out "Bae". Blogger Ashley Rose explains how to make these sweet treats on her blog Sugar and Cloth. (Photo by Jared Smith)

Flamingo-shaped macarons would make great additions to a whimsical wedding tablescape. (Photo by Jared Smith)

Sugar and Cloth's Ashley Rose (Photo by Jared Smith)

Forgo floral centerpieces for macaron cactus planters. (Photo by Jared Smith)

Much like a ’90s R&B ballad, the conventional wedding cake is due for a remix. For the nontraditional bride, towering tiers of white fondant have been replaced with playful motifs and flavor-intense frills, eschewing the postnuptial centerpiece in favor of a more intimate dessert experience. Here, three culinary trailblazers think outside the fondant.

REsume: Aussie by birth, tax consultant by trade, Lisa Driver of Maple & Love got her start making cupcakes for her co-workers. Word of mouth jolted her part-time business in Melbourne, but her move stateside sealed this self-taught baker’s fate as a full-time cuisiniere.

Flavor profile: Part cake, part objet d’art, Maple and Love’s whimsical confections capsize tradition with vibrant hues, edible ornaments and flavor profiles reminiscent of childhood ( think Funfetti cake, Oreo-infused icing and homemade honeycomb).

Cake of choice: The Duchess of Sprinkles — a fluffy vanilla cake smothered in cookies and cream frosting and a dark chocolate ganache drip, finished with crushed chocolate shards, sprinkles and crumbled candy.

Maple and Love, 832.781.7790, mapleandlove@gmail.com, mapleandlove.com

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Resume: After working in kitchens such as the now-shuttered Aries, the Omni Hotel and the Houston Country Club, pastry chef Matt Opaleski gave up the restaurant line for the sweeter life.

Flavor profile: Making the case that donuts are much more than a morning delicacy, the gourmet morsels from Opaleski’s Hugs & Donuts are everything from fruit-filled (with house made preserves, of course) to candy-coated to covered in bacon.

Donut of choice: To make — plain glazed. To eat — Biscoff cookie butter donut.

Hugs & Donuts, 1901 N. Shepherd Dr., 713.485.6443, love@hugsanddonuts.com, hugsanddonuts.com

Resume: After a brief stint in graphic design, Ashley Rose embarked on a path to self-discovery through her DIY blog, Sugar & Cloth. After three years of blogging, she’s been featured In Oprah magazine and on hgtv.com and teenvogue.com, among others.

Flavor profile: The classic macaron gets an artful facelift as Rose wields her paintbrush, transforming the French meringues into edible works of art.

Macaron of choice: Favorite macaron flavor — red velvet; favorite design — macaron cactus planters

sugarandcloth.com