Blake and I both knew very early on that we didn't want a traditional wedding cake. I don't find the process to be an all together appealing one, and I have not been able to taste the difference between the red velvet cakes served at the various weddings we've attended. Don't get me wrong, I loved them and they all tasted great; I just didn't see the point in repeating what other people had already done when I wasn't enthused about the idea in the first place.

We arrived at the idea of a croquembouche when I remembered that Blake loves cream puffs / profiteroles. They are probably among his favourite sweet treat, and it helped that the croquembouche isn't just a tower made of profiteroles, it's also a traditional French wedding dessert. That, I didn't know until Blake told me when he arrived at the same idea separately. Me, I actually thought of it purely because we watched a lot of Masterchef back in the day. Figures.

We didn't solidify the idea as a plan until we met with a photographer friend to chat about possibly doing photos for the wedding. While we chose someone else to photograph our wedding (though she is 100% awesome and personable and I will definitely be calling on her to do family photo shoots in the future), when we mentioned our barely-formed concept of a croquembouche, she instantly knew where to send us.

There's a tiny little French patisserie in Mount Lawley - Scents of Taste - that's owned and run by a pair of charming Frenchmen. And their stuff is great - Blake has loved pretty much everything he's tried from there - but a bit pricey. We did check out a couple of other places that did croquembouches for cheaper, and La Galette de France in Subiaco was the other main contender.

Scents of Taste was pricier than La Galette ($5/profiterole versus $3/profiterole), probably because Scents of Taste's profiteroles were considerably larger than La Galette's. La Galette had free delivery within the metro area included in their price while Scents of Taste did not, and did not actually offer a delivery service at all. I, doing the number-crunching and sanity management, much preferred the La Galette option purely because it'd simplify things. But Scents of Taste won out for 2 very important reasons.

Blake much, much preferred the quality of the toffee they put on the profiteroles.
Their name includes a fantastic pun.

So, we went with Scents of Taste. They were very accommodating, answering all our questions and allowing us to call ahead and arrange for us to try samples. Overall I was happy to pay more for a superior product, and I highly recommend these guys if you're after amazing French pastry.

But then came the more dramatic part of the story: the delivery.