Before cupcake pans, personalized dessert portions were made by baking full-sized cakes and shrinking them in the dryer. Skip extra steps with today’s Groupon to Polly Ann Bakery in Novato. Choose between the following options:

• For $12, you get a dozen cupcakes (a $25 value).
• For $50, you get $100 toward a wedding cake.<p>

The culinary artisans at Polly Ann Bakery enchant epicureans with cupcakes and impressive cakes for weddings, anniversaries, and other special events. Bakers whip local eggs and creamery butter and spike them with cupcake-sized flavor including traditional vanilla, german chocolate, and carrot cake, which arrive adorned with fluffy buttercream frosting.

Wedding cakes ($5–$6/serving) access memory centers through the tongue to make any special event stick in guests’ minds, elegantly constructed from rich ingredients such as whipping cream and decadent couverture chocolate from European chocolatiers as well as the Bay Area’s own Guittard Chocolate Company. Cake options such as vanilla buttermilk or chocolate chiffon lay a luscious foundation for towers of cake or the vacation homes of gingerbread men, held together by mortars of indulgent fillings such as fudge, lemon, seasonal fresh fruit, or bavarian cream. Buttercream frosting or mousse covers bare cakes in a layer as smooth and creamy as freshly fallen snow, and icing options such as ganache and rolled white chocolate add aesthetic appeal to espousal pastries.