Cake Byte: Kingfish Cafe Pastry Chef Expands Custom Cake Offerings

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As a minor internet celebrity cake website writer, I get press releases about food from people who want me to write about the food they make, or the foods that their clients make.

I'll tell you the truth, most of these press releases are boring and I delete them.

But occasionally, one will capture my interest. This one caught my eye right away because it had some keywords I quite liked: Kingfish Cafe, cake, and...well, I was already drawn into the thing. As it turns out, Violette Tucker, the current pastry chef at Kingfish, home of the small baby-sized slices of glorious Red Velvet and Hummingbird cakes I love, is branching out with more specialty cakes. That's great news! Here's the 411 (the press release). Good stuff.

 It’s a well-known fact that one of the not-to-be-missed signature dishes at the southern inspired Kingfish Café has always been the multilayered, moist, deliciously iced slices of cake that often sell out before the evening ends.   A little known secret is that a sumptuous line of made-to-order celebration cakes is available for order from the Capitol Hill dining icon.   Pastry Chef Violette Tucker, whose desserts have titillated the taste buds of many a guest, has created an extraordinary line of custom-made cakes to mark any celebration.  Perfect for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays or at-home dinner parties, these fabulous confections are no light weights.  Depending on the flavor, a cake, which yields about 16 very tall, extremely generous restaurant servings, can range from 20 pounds for lemon to 35 pounds for German Chocolate.  Customers consult with Violette to design the dream cake of their choice using their favorite flavors and go through a tasting.  Arrangements are then made for pick-up or delivery to the party venue.

As an apprentice at a Chicago bakery, Violette started working the counter and when an opportunity opened in the kitchen, she took it and never looked back.  She loves creating “big homespun American cakes and wedding cakes, just like mom and grandma served”.  While the hands-down favorite at The Kingfish is the Red Velvet cake, she is hard put to think of a combination that she hasn’t created for someone’s special occasion. 

Tucker looks at her job at The Kingfish, where she has worked for 7 ½ years, as pretty luxurious for a pastry chef.  She works four days a week, arrives around 7:30 to 8:00 am and leaves by mid-afternoon.  In addition to her mile-high cakes, she creates an ever changing seasonal dessert menu.  During the summer, guests flock to the restaurant for her incredible strawberry shortcake – a huge portion overflowing with fresh berries and whipped cream, which can easily feed two or more.  

When not baking, Violette is dancing.  A professional, she performs modern dance and dance improvisation.  She is also working on an upcoming website which will focus on gluten free desserts to be called tuckerstreats.com

To inquire about ordering a special occasion cake from The Kingfish Café (602-19^th Avenue East in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood) call (206) 320-8757.