Fondant or marzipan paste? Royal icing or butter cream? Full slab or 1/2 slab or round or square? How do you sift through all your baking choices? No problem. Check our quick list of common baking terms, and you can speak knowledgably about what you want for your wedding. Here we cover fillings, frostings and decoration choices in our handy SmartBride Checklist to make your wedding cake shopping easy.
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Here we cover the typical wedding cake lingo: fondant or marzipan paste? royal icing or butter cream? We have it all here to help you make the best decision.
The vanilla-flavoured wedding cake is traditional, and although many couples choose an alternative, the vanilla or “white” wedding cake is still very popular. One option with any wedding cake is the use of fillings—fruit jams, butter cream icing, fresh fruit, custards, and mousses—and some fillings include liqueurs. The traditional wedding cake has two layers of cake with one layer of filling. Today, wedding cakes are multi-tiered with many layers and sometimes each layer has a different cake and filling. The torte-style cake is also a popular alternative to the traditional wedding cake.
When it comes to decorating the wedding cake, pretty well anything goes. The most common frostings are royal icing, butter cream icing, rolled fondant, marzipan, whipped cream icing, and meringue icing. After the cake is frosted, there is a multitude of ways in which to decorate the cake. Whether you choose sugar-flower decorations, fresh-flowers, or fresh fruit to decorate the cake, colour is much more common now in a wedding cake. Not only is the wedding cake frosting coloured, but, so are the decorations. The taste and flavour of the wedding cake is as important as the look of the wedding cake.
When you are asking for quotes from a variety of bakers, be clear about your budget. Any photos you have of cakes that you like will help your baker understand your tastes more clearly. Usually couples will order their wedding cake from an established baker that they have ordered cakes from in the past. This is especially true if you are looking at a non-traditional wedding cake. Your favourite cheesecake, or torte at your local bakery might become your wedding cake.
Your wedding cake can have multiple tiers, or each tier can be placed on a different cake stand of varying heights and displayed on the cake table. There is the option of mini-cakes—an individual small cake for each guest. Cake toppers can be Swarovski crystal monograms, sculptured glass, metal sculptures or one of the many humourous cake toppers, which can be commercially purchased. You might opt for fresh flowers or fresh fruit to decorate your cake instead of a cake topper.
One small wedding I attended had 10 tables for the guests, and each table had a different small, decorated cake as the centrepiece. After the meal and a few speeches, the guests were invited to visit each table, and one of the wedding party or family members cut small pieces of cake that everyone could sample. It was fun, got everyone up and walking around after the meal, and we all got to try a lot of different kinds of cakes.
Wedding cakes can be formal with a cake cutting ceremony, or you can just serve a great tasting cake from your favourite baker. Maybe you will choose to serve individual single-serving cakes to your guests. You can have a dessert buffet later in the evening with a variety of dessert choices, or a candy table open through out the evening. The modern bride and groom have all choices before them, and there are no rules or expectations.