"Imagine a wedding breakfast without a fabulously designed
wedding cake as the centrepiece. It wouldn't be right, would it?"
Image right: A 3 Tier Wedding
Cake by HJ Wedding
Cakes, Bedfordshire, UK (only available in the UK)
The
history of wedding cakes is a fascinating one, with a story that
starts with the celebration of nuptials as far back as ancient
Roman times when a simple cake of wheat or barley would have been
broken over the bride's head in order to ensure her future fertility.
Guests would scramble to obtain a crumb for themselves, a custom
that led to the sharing of the modern traditional wedding cake.
Eventually the cake evolved in both size and decoration until
breaking it over the bride's head became impractical, if not impossible.
Medieval England saw the introduction of mounds of small buns,
a fashion that has gone full circle with the re-introduction of
the individual cup cake tower as a popular alternative to the
traditionally tiered wedding cake.
The bride and groom would traditionally try to kiss over the
top of the tower without knocking the cakes down. If successful,
prosperity and health would await the lucky couple. For convenience
the small cakes were eventually frosted together with sugar.
Thanks to a visiting French chef during the mid-1600s, wedding
cake design took a distinct turn towards the style of cake we're
familiar with today. The Frenchman's aversion to cakes falling
to the floor prompted him to design an alternative, the tiered
and frosted cake, a wedding cake design that quickly caught on
and that has since held its popularity.
The history of wedding cakes then started out on its last leg
before reaching the traditional wedding cakes we have today, mostly
due to brides striving to outdo each other. The more admiration
a wedding cake design received, the greater the chance of a marriage
steeped in good fortune and peace.
Demands for larger, more elaborate wedding cakes appeared as
the number of guests celebrating the happy couple grew. Big receptions
meant big wedding cakes that often took months to create. Understandably,
without the luxury of modern refrigeration, cakes made from dried
fruit and fats became popular because of their longevity in the
larder. A thick sugar frosting helped prevent moisture loss, ensuring
the cake would be moist and tasty when finally served and devoured.
Wedding cake history had taken the final step along the road to
the cake we know today.
Previous to the Victorian era, only the rich could afford the
very finest sugars needed to make pure white icing. This resulted
in the white wedding cake design becoming a symbol of wealth rather
than purity, as is often believed.
The Second World War forced brides to be imaginative in order
to have a beautiful wedding cake using limited ingredients. As
sugar was rationed and therefore scarce, cakes were generally
reduced in size and, so as to resemble a traditional wedding cake
design, served inside a box decorated with plaster of Paris.
Whenever we see a bride and groom cutting the wedding cake, we're
witnessing a very long tradition of the bride vowing to help her
groom wherever possible, and when the proceed to feed one another
from that first slice they're committing to provide for one another
for.
