A meringue baton is meringue piped into a short stick and baked dry, so it snaps instead of bending. Scattered over a cake it does two jobs at once: it catches the light, and it puts a crisp element on top of something soft. That is the finish on our Lemon Blueberry Cake, and it is the reason this one photographs better than a plain glazed loaf.
Tart, sweet, and the layer in between
The cake is built on the zest of fresh lemons and juicy blueberries, which is a pairing that works because the two pull in opposite directions: the lemon keeps arriving after the fruit has faded. Over the top goes a tres leches ganache, the three-milks idea used as a rich, creamy layer rather than a soak, and then the meringue batons. The result reads bright rather than heavy, which matters at the end of a long meal when a dense chocolate cake is the last thing anybody wants. If the tres leches element interests you, it is the whole basis of our Tres Leches layer cake, and there is a long tradition behind it.
Why we call it a travel cake
The bundt and loaf range is our travel cake range, and the name is practical rather than poetic. No delicate frosting to bruise on the way, no refrigeration needed, no assembly at the other end. You collect it, you carry it, you put it on a table. For anyone setting up a room for fifteen to fifty people without kitchen staff on hand, that is the difference between a dessert course and a dessert problem. The rest of the tea cakes and loaves behave the same way.
Two sizes, and the arithmetic of a table
The Lemon Blueberry comes as a 20cm loaf at $35, which serves eight, or a larger 25cm bundt, which serves sixteen. Those numbers are larger than most people assume, so count heads before you order rather than after. Three bundts cover forty-eight people for about what a single 25cm layer cake serving thirty to thirty-five costs, and they give you three flavours on the table instead of one. The same two shapes apply across the whole range, including the Cuca Banana under its Southern Brazilian streusel.
Building the rest of the table around it
A dessert table wants contrast, and the easiest contrast is colour. Against the pale lemon and blue, the Marble Chocolate gives you dark, the Anthill Coconut gives you a speckled pale, and the Apple Crumble gives you a rough golden top. Three of the travel cakes also carry a No Added Dairy preference you select at checkout: Brazilian Carrot, Apple Crumble and Pineapple Coconut, and on the Pineapple Coconut that preference is a different build of the cake, since the standard one is topped with a rich tres leches. This is the only place on the food menu where that is a selectable option rather than a request, and our kitchen is small and without exclusive production areas for all of our different recipes, so traces may occur, and nothing is guaranteed safe for severe coeliac disease. For height and smaller portions between the cakes, mini cakes come singly or as a tray of six or twelve, one serving apiece, and a petit four tray holds fifteen pieces, all made with no added gluten.
A trial run is one loaf
Do not commit a fifty-person table to a flavour you have never eaten. Buy the loaf first, bring the person who is hosting with you, and split it between the two of you over a coffee at our counter. It is the cheapest possible rehearsal, it settles the argument about whether the room wants citrus or chocolate, and the two of you will notice different things about it, which is the actual value of not doing this alone. Our dessert catering page covers the larger formats.
Ordering and visiting
The Lemon Blueberry is made to order and needs two days' notice, and the checkout date picker only offers the dates the kitchen can meet for what is in your cart. Petit four trays need seven days, so order those first if they are on your list. Travel cakes keep at room temperature away from sun and heat, which is why they suit an event you are setting up in advance. Collection is in person from our patisserie inside The Welder on Welles Street in the central city, since we do not deliver, and collecting the day before is normal. We are open 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Friday and 10am to 3pm Saturday.
