It started off with a classic bread trade: Laura offered to make the dream cake for my birthday four years ago for a barter. “What do you like?” she asked, “blueberries and fudge” I answered. Magic happened and she baked the most amazing cake ever. We started trading; I baked bread for her dinners, and she made personalized cakes for any special birthday parties I was invited to. She successfully combined pretzels, sea salt caramels and chocolate in one amazing cake. Blackberries, vodka butter cream and raw cacao nibs I brought back from Nicaragua in another. Not to mention the layered strawberry rhubarb cake with white chocolate ganache spiked with aphrodisiac tonka beans she created for my book. She can make a cake that follows your stories perfectly, while never compromising on quality. By using Belgian chocolate, her ganache simply tastes better; using eggs no older than 2 days, her meringue naturally is baked to perfection. Quality should have its price, but if you want to celebrate with a perfect cake and can’t manage it yourself, then no one else can do it better than Laura-Ximena Villanueva Guerra and her enterprise Tausendsuend. (Photos top: Malin Elmlid, photo below: Daniela Müller-Brunke)
Malin Elmlid has been living in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg since 2000 and writes for various travel and lifestyle publications. She is the founder of the trading network The Bread Exchange and her book is coming out in October.