Sweets for the Sweet: Inspiring treats for your big day

Some wedding cakes are so beautifully decorated, you’d almost hate to eat them. Almost.
Northwest Michigan pastry chefs, cookie-makers and cake designers extraordinaire add a sweet touch to wedding celebrations, whether it’s a traditional white-tiered cake, a jazzed up version with raspberry cream-cheese filling, chocolate chunk cookies, cheesecakes or pastries.
Sheryl McCleery, owner of Tom’s Mom’s Cookies in Harbor Springs, said she has several requests each year to provide her famous cookies in place of wedding cake.
“It’s definitely unique, especially if someone is looking for signature Harbor Springs,” said McCleery. “It’s far less expensive than a traditional wedding cake, and you’ve already got your individual servings.”
McCleery’s cookies have been made famous on the Food Channel in recent years, and a spot on Rachael Ray’s show is pending, too. Varieties like the original chocolate chunk, white chocolate or cinnamon sugar cookies would make excellent wedding dessert choices, McCleery said; a mixture of tastes would be an original idea, too. She arranges the cookies in cake-like tiers for reception display.
Another popular option for brides and grooms: Ordering dozens of cookies, wrapping them decoratively (place the cookies back-to-back, she advises) and making wrapped gift packs for guests.
There are 16 different tastes to choose from at Tom’s Mom’s, including a new chocolate oatmeal. McCleery suggests for those considering cookies as reception dessert fare, order two cookies per guest. The turn-around time from her ovens is quick.
“We can do 400 cookies for anybody on a couple days’ notice,” she said.

Kim Sperl’s cakes are not only a sight to behold, but she’s known for filling them with orange-ginger cream cheese, peanut butter buttercream or passion fruit ganache. There’s mango or raspberry cream cheese, caramel, pistachio, hazelnut, Irish cream and almond, too. And even more than that (visit ww.bellaedolce.com for the complete flavor list).
Sperl, a pastry chef whose business Bella e Dolce is located in Cheboygan, caters her cakes to weddings around the north region. “Most people just refer to me as the ‘cake lady,’” she said.
A graduate of Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, Sperl began her business in the mid-1980s. “My European training was a perfect match for all the beautiful Northern Michigan wedding venues, so I can understand why it’s a popular wedding destination,” Sperl said.
Sperl said her business is known for high-end wedding cakes, classic French pastries and one-of-a-kind novelty cakes — plus the fact that “everything is made from scratch.” Many cakes are hand-painted to match a bride’s dress or wedding theme, and Sperl can make any flower decoration from sugarpaste to match the bride’s floral bouquet.
“We’ve made a groom’s cake that looks like a pontoon boat and a wedding cake that looked like the Round Island lighthouse,” she said.
Other ideas for wedding-day desserts from her baking background include cupcakes, French chocolate truffles and decorated sugar cookies wrapped and tied with ribbon as wedding favors.

Chef Julie Adams, Julienne Tomatoes, Petoskey, 439-9250
Bill Warner, New York Cakes of Atwood, (231) 676-0073
Gretel Stackler, Amazing Cakes, Charlevoix, 547-7470 

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