Don’t let Monthalee Farley’s demure appearance fool you. The soft-spoken native of Thailand may stand less than 5 feet tall, but her wedding cakes will knock you over with their elaborate designs and unique flavors.
“The first thing about a cake is that it should look beautiful,” says Farley, cake designer for Creme de la Creme Wedding Cakes (773-363-1650 or at the Web site, www.elegantcakes.com), a business she operates with Guillermo Perez. “(But) it has to be different. I want it to look like a piece of art.”
Farley’s skills as a fruit carver augment her skills as a pastry chef. She and Perez met while studying at the French Pastry School. They started the business last year in Farley’s Hyde Park apartment.
In their current space, one corner is occupied by a large, industrial refrigerator that holds dozens of eggs and packages of butter. Gum-paste flowers and elaborate molds line a wall. The baking is done at Guadalajara Bakery on the Northwest Side, owned by Perez’s father. The cakes are then finished back at the apartment, where Farley uses a combination of fondants and buttercreams to give them extra richness. Cakes range from $6 to $15 per serving, depending on how elaborate a design you want.
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The raspberry and vanilla mousse cake is layered with almond spongecake, then topped with a pastillage (gelatin form) holding fresh raspberries and showered with bits of pistachio for texture. Another cake that looked basic-lemon genoise coated with French buttercream-hides a stash of fresh raspberries nestled in a layer of praline cream. Both creations epitomize the team’s philosophy: Make moist cakes with different textures, and use fruit to offset the sweetness of the buttercream.
Designing large cakes will be a little easier next month when the two pastry chefs take over the old French Pastry School space at 1153 W. Grand Ave., 312-243-2502. (The school is moving to a larger space downtown.) The 2,500-square-foot space will have room for a display area and formal tastings, but more important, the chefs will finally have their own ovens.
“This is my dream,” Farley says. “I’ve always wanted to have my own business and work for myself.”