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vendor reviews: cakes
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Interviewing Chrissie Boon, Owner & Cake Designer, Too Nice to Slice
Too Nice to Slice is seeing their number of bookings increase each wedding season. Chrissie believes that a new approach, quality recipes, and continually expanding her portfolio with new techniques such as hand painted sweets are her keys to such enormous success and growth. "I have the opportunity to offer a new energy, a fresh perspective and approach to design...," she says. "I can't wait to share my ideas with the brides and grooms who come to see me." Chrissie's sweet designs are intricate and aimed at elegance. Equally important, these creations taste as good as they look. Let us explain...
Personally speaking... From the very beginning, all signs pointed to wedding cakes for Chrissie Boon. She started baking professionally when she was just thirteen. She took a part time job helping her mother with her Christmas cookie business. After several years, Chrissie took over her Mom's business and worked at growing it even further. In her busiest year, Chrissie made over six thousand cookies!
Schooling a professional Chrissie has her Master Cake Decorator Certificate from internationally recognized McCall’s School of Cake Decorating and takes classes with internationally renowned cake decorator, Nicholas Lodge, each year. Chrissie was also one of the expert judges for the prestigious Skills Canada Program in the Culinary Arts Division, awarding large scholarships to the winning designers. Chrissie just recently won silver herself in the Master's Division of the Canadian Society of Sugar Artistry's wedding cake competition.
But since Chrissie isn't happy unless she's learning a new technique or design, she continues to study a variety of decorating and design techniques both on her own, and through Klara Johnson’s School of Confectionary and Pastry Art. "I need to stay on top of the business," Chrissie told us. "I’m always interested in learning something new. I want to be able to offer my brides and grooms the best, the newest, the hottest ideas."
Why wedding cakes? Chrissie's love for creating beautiful, edible works of art is served best by wedding cakes because they are probably the most elaborate, challenging pastry baking that you can do. Chrissie also enjoys meeting with couples, hearing their plans and working on a cake design together. "I get to help make their day a little sweeter... Literally!" she smiles.
New hand painted sweets Working with a local artist - one of only forty people in North America who are qualified to do this - Too Nice to Slice hand paints designs and décor directly onto wedding cakes, cookies, cupcake tops, and flowers or figures. These unique designs allow an entirely new dimension to the creative options that you have when you visit Chrissie.
Underneath it all... All Chrissie’s cakes are baked from scratch with no pre-packaged mixes. Her cakes are available in a wide range of flavours. Her most popular flavours are Dutch chocolate, French vanilla, butter pecan and banana. She also offers lemon, spice, carrot, banana walnut, pound, fudge marble and many more. If you have a flavour desire, Chrissie can probably whip it up.
For icing, Chrissie tells us that most people choose buttercream. But Chrissie can do all kinds of flavour combinations of your choice of cake with any flavour of icing and any kind of filling. Some of the more popular kinds include: white chocolate, hazelnut, lemon, or vanilla buttercream, chocolate ganache, chocolate mousse and seasonal fruit. Some of Chrissie’s personal favourites are raspberry, Oreo and Bacia.
Handmade sugar décor Chrissie specializes in offering a large variety of hand-made sugar flowers that not only look real, but are all entirely edible. Ribbons, bows, flowers and traditional bride and groom cake toppers are some of the edible confection decorations that Chrissie has created in the past, but she’s always open to doing something new and different, so tell her your own ideas and she'll work with you to create a customized design.
How on earth do you choose? One of Chrissie’s favourite things about her business is getting to sit down with couple to come up with the design and flavours for their wedding cake. About half of the couples come armed with pictures from magazines or books depicting the type of cake they want. The rest come with no ideas at all and are looking for inspiration and samples. Chrissie makes it simpler for her customers to decide which cake to choose by following these five easy steps: 1. Determine how many people you need the cake to serve... 2. Determine which shape appeals most to you: round, oval, square, flower, heart... 3. Choose to incorporate wedding colours and/or flowers or other design elements... 4. Share your own ideas... 5. Sample!
The cost of eating cake... As a guideline for budgeting, Chrissie says that their average couple spends approximately $250 to $400 on a wedding cake at Too Nice to Slice. Each couple’s ideas and budgets are unique, so contact Too Nice to Slice directly for more detailed pricing information on your specific requests.
In addition to her wedding cakes, Chrissie can make cakes for any other occasion. "I’ve made cakes for birthdays, anniversaries, showers, St. Patrick’s Day, graduations. I can make a cake for any occasion you can dream up!" The most unusual cake that Chrissie has ever made was for a very unique anniversary celebration. "I made a 17" long cigarette shaped-and-decorated cake to celebrate a customer’s twentieth anniversary of quitting smoking!"
detailsdetailsdetails • A 50% deposit is due at the time of booking Too Nice to Slice. • Your balance is due 2 weeks before the wedding date. • Chrissie recommends that you book 6 to 12 months in advance for dates during the busy season. She limits her cakes to 3 per weekend in order to give each one her detailed attention, so weekends can book up quickly. • Chrissie is willing to do last minute bookings if she is available, so give her a call even if your date is soon.
Inotherwords... "Chrissie, Your cakes were the highlight of the night! Everyone was totally impressed at how they all turned out. And they tasted spectacular (Brad ate 2 last night)!!!! I can't say that I was surprised because I know you always do such an amazing job, but my family and friends were certainly overwhelmed by your fantastic talent!!! So I just want to say thanks for helping to make my wedding absolutely perfect (and indeed it was). And your arrangement of the cakes on the stands was perfect!! I don't know what else to say other than thank-you again!" - Kathleen "Thank you so much for the amazing cake you made for our special day... not only was it beautiful to look at but it tasted amazing!! Everything about it was exactly how I'd pictured it in my mind. Our guests are still commenting on how delicious it was!!" - Danielle "Hey Chrissie, Thanks so much for your amazing cake! It was all gone, who would have known... the hall said they have never served a cake that was all eaten. It was exactly what we envisioned and more and tasted awesome." - Amanda "Just wanted to drop you a quick line to say thank you for the great job you did on my wedding cake... I received many compliments not only on the taste, but on how nice it looked as well... even better many people asked who did it. Thanks again for everything." - Jessica & Greg "What a wonderful cake!! Not only was it beyond our expectations regarding design and craftsmanship, but it tasted as good as it looked!" - Donna
Contacting Too Nice to Slice
Chrissie Boon invites you to contact
her at Too Nice to Slice by phone at her brand new shop, located at 153 Country Hill
Drive in
Kitchener, Unit 5 (by
- The Staff at TheWeddingRing.ca * Prices are all approximate and are subject to change and verification by authorized staff and management of Too Nice to Slice. Photo on right photo strip of 'fall leaves' cake courtesy of Captured Soul Photography. |
Chrissie Boon is
talented, enthusiastic, and as sweet as the cakes she designs each day. Before
opening Too Nice to Slice in 2004, Chrissie had already run a successful custom
cookie business, baked wedding cakes by request for over seven years, and got her
Master Cake Decorator certificate. In fact, when you look at her past, it seemed
only inevitable that Chrissie would eventually trade in her cookie cutter for a
cake stand. 
More2love...
From there, the
cookie business
began to take a turn in a new direction. "Customers just wanted more and more...
They were asking for cookies and desserts for birthdays and anniversaries. One
thing led to another, and then I was making wedding cakes too!"
Chrissie completely
relates to brides in The Ring because she, too, is a recent bride. Even though
she admits that
she used The Ring to plan her own
wedding, she wasn’t
looking for a cake bakery. Chrissie made her own
wedding cake, and describes it as "... an intricate,
six-tier dream cake with different flavours
for each layer."
Too Nice to Slice
also offers a selection of fondant icings in white, chocolate or white
chocolate. "Most people love the clean look of fondant icing on a cake," she
said, "but are worried that it’ll be too sweet for them." In truth, Chrissie
informed us, fondant icing is a little less sweet
than traditional or buttercream icing.
It doesn’t stop there!
appointment only). Here you'll be able
to view sample cakes, browse cake idea books, and get started toward
designing
your own wedding cake with Chrissie.
To contact Chrissie
by phone call 519-741-0927, or reach her by email at