The wonderful world of wedding cakes

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Posted at 1:08PM, 29 April 2009 by Carol Wilson - Food writer

The start of summer sees the start of the wedding season - the most popular time to tie the knot. Weddings are big business for Britain's £3.5 billion wedding industry, with the cost of the all-important wedding cake averaging around £350, depending on size and design. Wedding cakes, like the bride's dress, are subject to the whims of fashion, with celebrity weddings and cake designers setting new trends.

The once traditional grand multi-tiered heavily fruited cake, decorated with royal icing flowers, doves, horseshoes and bells was created for Victorian royal weddings. These sugary edifices set the style for many years and remained virtually unchanged until the 1980s, when tastes veered towards something simpler; a lighter sponge cake replaced the rich fruit cake and intricately piped royal icing began to be replaced by soft icing, draped and frilled and often garlanded with sugar paste flowers.

Contemporary cakes can be any size, shape, colour or flavour and the choice is limitless with virtually any request, no matter how outlandish, realised in cake...

Nowadays anything goes when it comes to wedding cakes. Contemporary cakes can be any size, shape, colour or flavour and the choice is limitless with virtually any request, no matter how outlandish, realised in cake, icing and sugarpaste. At my friend's wedding recently they had an ambulance cake complete with sugarpaste figures of the happy couple - a doctor and a nurse!

Being a chocoholic, for my own wedding I chose a stacked rich dark chocolate cake, decorated with edible fresh and sugar paste flowers. Favourites with today's brides are small cakes stacked and decorated to look like a pile of boxed wedding presents; tiers of pastel coloured iced cup cakes decorated with edible sparkles; American style stacked cakes covered with soft icing; novelty cakes based on a humorous event associated with the newlyweds and a tower of individual desserts instead of cake.

For something completely different there's the French croquembouche - a tempting pyramid of choux pastry balls filled with whipped cream and decorated with candied fruits, rosettes of whipped cream, and spun sugar. Madonna chose a croquembouche for her wedding to Guy Ritchie.

Southern states of the USA weddings feature a smaller Groom's Cake alongside the wedding cake, usually in the shape of the groom's favourite hobby, e.g. baseball bat, camera or golf bag. I haven't come across this in Britain though.

Wedding cakes have certainly come a long way since ancient Roman weddings were finalised by breaking a cake of wheat or barley over the bride's head as a symbol of good fortune! But custom still decrees that whatever the shape or size of cake, the newlyweds must cut the cake together to symbolise sharing their future.

Do you know of any unusual wedding cakes?

Comments

James

29 April 2009, 5:31PM
James

And that's without mentioning cheese wedding cakes (towers of cheese)..... and pork pie wedding cakes. By the time it gets to the cake most people can't manage the cakey cakes, but give them cheese or pork pies and they carry on eating them through the night - there's always a rush at 11:00 as everyone's danced off the meal.

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miniminx

30 April 2009, 12:04PM
miniminx

at a recent friend's wedding in tuscany (lucky thing!!) she actually served dessert as the 'cake'. a massive confection made from sweetened marscapone with vanilla and studded with fresh strawberries (this is a traditional tuscan dessert i can't remember the name of) spread literally about a metre across on the biggest serving plate i've ever seen! a bit like very posh angel delight. guests were then free to dig in as they pleased!

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CloClo

30 April 2009, 5:48PM
CloClo

I don't know if it averages out at Â£350, but for the past few months I've been doing a project on all wedding related items and I haven't even SEEN a cake priced at that - the cheapest I found is Â£500! There are some lovely, reasonably traditional ones available, as well as more personalised ones. I saw several castles (ones with dragon), a train, heaven, beaches, disco balls etc. From the prices I've seen, I think that, when the time comes, I'll be making my own!

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smitty

30 April 2009, 11:09PM
smitty

A friend of mine had large lifelike sugar sculptures of herself and the groom - no cake -just sugar paste and marzipan.

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Jo_Cooks

1 May 2009, 10:30AM
Jo_Cooks

My future mother-in-law is making my wedding cake (she made her daughter's too) and the first time round it cost her Â£90 for all the ingredients and the cake tins and stand to create a four-tier traditional white-iced fruit cake. This time it will cost less as she has all the equipment. Much more personal and delicious too, can't wait!

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shez

5 May 2009, 9:45PM
shez

I got married 3 years ago and was under-wowed by the teired creations as knew it would just stand in the corner like a lonely spinster. So I was really brave and ordered a princess and a frog and only told my best friend! I went to view it in the cake shop the day before ourr wedding and even the makers looked a little worried before the reveal! Just after we got married, I took my hubby to view it feeling a little nervous and have never heard him laugh as he did then! It was the talking point of the evening function and did not sit un-noticed! Out with the traditional I say and be creative!

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Emily

6 May 2009, 10:55AM
Emily

My sister got married last summer and neither she nor her hubbie are big fruit cake fans, so decided to go for something different... they had a choc-tastic cake topped with eclairs, brownies, truffles, plus strawberries, with fairy lights woven through it. It was amazing! They forgot to give out slices at the wedding so we all had to tuck in for the next couple of days to finish it off... poor us!

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Ellie Reade

6 May 2009, 12:40PM
Ellie Reade

You only need to pick up any Wedding Cake magazine to find that tastes have certainly changed. I have made several wedding cakes now and although fruit still seems a firm favourite, the majority now seem to want at least one tier sponge. The american style of layering the cakes on top of each other is very popular and fairly easy to do. The first wedding cake I did was of 2 tiers, the second tier held up by a glass vase of flowers sitting inside the 1st tier (hard to explain, but very pretty!)

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Fredwina

6 May 2009, 4:42PM
Fredwina

My wedding cake is made up of individual strawberry cheesecakes with a bigger one on top to cut, it's perfect for us as I don't like icing sugar and my hubbie to be doesn't like fruitcake.

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Frantic Flapjack

12 May 2009, 3:01PM
Frantic Flapjack

A few years ago, my friend got married in a lighthouse and her wedding cake was a replica of the lighthouse. Bold and individual - just like her really!

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barnybrit

13 May 2009, 9:14PM
barnybrit

I had a wedding cake and it tasted so awful......even the dog turned his nose up at it!!! I should have made it myself as I'm a dessert cook but I was so busy with plans etc I didn't have the time. A reputable baker made it and it did look lovely but the taste was horrible and it was not cheap either!! I had a sample cake before ordering it too and it was good. Cost means nothing. Taste.....everything.

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keriku

17 June 2009, 6:24PM
keriku

When I was getting married in 1989, my friend who is a wedding photographer showed me photos of some of the wierdest cakes I have ever seen. The one I remember most was loads of cakes linked with plastic staircases with lots of little plastic brides and grroms advancing up them. It must have needed a table about 8 foot long. My brother was married in a castle and his cake was fabulous. It was castle shaped with little turrets and hand made ivy up the walls. Atop were a sugar bride & groom, The groom's kilt was hand painted to match my brother's kilt. Incredible. The lady who made it is famous in our area and deserves to be!

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LittleCloud

19 June 2009, 5:14PM
LittleCloud

I worked at a function centre for many years and we saw some bizarre cakes. One couple had a wedding cake that was about 3 metres long and was a replica of themselves in a carriage, down to the smallest detail. Another couple had green Balfours frog cakes as their wedding cake. The most revolting was probably the chocolate fountain though. The entire venue smelt of milk chocolate (sounds nice but was quite owerpowering) and we spent the next week scraping chocolte of the walls, floor and celiling (don't ask).

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