A number of brides and grooms these days are doing fun desserts that can stand in place of cake or can be served in addition.   I am always of the mindset “the more sweets the better” but if you’re starting to feel like the wedding cake is a thing of the past, try out these popular options…

Cupcakes!  Cupcakes are unbelievably popular right now, and why wouldn’t they be?  They are mini, made out of cake and usually topped with some awesome icing…count me in!  Cupcakes are a great idea because they don’t have to look like a cake, but they can.  There are so many different flavor and filling combinations AND they can be displayed on towers, tiered stands, any way you choose. Sometimes cupcakes accompany a single layer of cake so the bride and groom still have something to enjoy on their anniversary or something for the traditional first cut.

Also, there are many different ways to dress up your cupcake now-a-days, it’s not just your average foil wrapper!

In addition to or instead of decorative wrappers, you could cap your cupcakes with really neat designs.  Remember these?

Stemming from the same idea of cupcakes is this great find from Martha Stewart Weddings.  Sugar cookies shaped like wedding cakes!  They can be all the same decoration or a variety of designs to match your wedding patterns or colors.  Need another argument for cookies? They can double as your favors!

Another kind of “cake” that is becoming an increasingly popular station at The Hall of Springs is cheesecake! We have more and more requests for our cheesecake martini bar, which includes squares of cheesecake served in martini glasses with a variety of fruit toppings, chocolate, nuts, and whipped cream for your guests to make exactly how they like it!

No matter how you slice it, cake (or cupcakes, cookie cakes, cheesecake, etc.) will always have a place in the American wedding tradition…now we just have some more interesting options!

This past July we took a look at wedding cake traditions around the globe and I promised to follow up with a history of wedding cake.  Well it may have taken me a few months but here it is…

The lovely (and sometimes messy) tradition of feeding one another wedding cake symbolizes the mutual agreement to support, care and provide for one another throughout your lives together.  It is one of those traditions that you will still find at most modern weddings.   Though the symbolism has survived the cake (lucky for us!) has evolved…

Back in Ancient Rome, the groom would take a loaf of barley or wheat bread and break it over the bride’s head to symbolize fertility, blessings and (some say) the groom’s dominance over his new bride.  Hmmm….not sure how I feel about that last interpretation.  After the bread had left a complete mess of crumbs all over the floor, guests would scramble to pick them up…not because they were being kind and cleaning up but because the crumbs were considered good luck!

**Fun fact: After the bread had been broken and the “cake” had been used up, the guests were given a mixture of nuts and dried fruits to toss around the room and at the bride and groom which was called confetto.  This was later replaced with petals, rice, and colorful paper….hence the modern term confetti!**

Some fabulous bride must have put up a stink about ruining her hair-do as the tradition of breaking bread over heads was (thankfully) phased out.

While most of the early cakes were not at all sweet (most were simply flour based) some traditions involved stacking sweet buns in a pile in front of the bride and groom.  The couple would then attempt to kiss as they leaned over the large tower.  A successful kiss without knocking them all on the floor meant that there would be many children in the couple’s future.

Bride’s Pie was the next baked good in fashion and consisted of minced meats, nuts and fruits and was typically decorated with with elaborate pastry emblems. The secret ingredient was a ring which was baked right into the pie.  The lady who was lucky enough to get the ring in her serving and managed not to choke on the aforementioned ring, was certain to be the next to marry.  Sort of a more dangerous version of the modern bouquet toss…

It wasn’t until the seventeenth century that the tradition of white icing began.  The first white frosting would have been a kind of meringue mixture made with egg whites and sugar, applied to the cake right out of the oven and then baked until it hardened.

The whiter the color of the icing the more wealth the family had.  The whitest sugar was triple refined and as a result incredibly expensive.  Only the most wealthy families could afford such an extravagant expense.

The term “Royal Icing” originated at Queen Victoria’s wedding to Prince Albert in 1840.   Their wedding cake was multi-tiered and measured NINE FEET in circumference!!  Surely this would have qualified for a WE Platinum Wedding episode!  Below is the more subdued wedding cake design for her daughter Princess Victoria’s wedding to the Crown Prince of Prussia in 1858:

As ingredients and equipment became more widely available and as chefs adopted more advanced processes for building multiple layers we arrived at the modern wedding cake that we all know and love.  No more crumbs in our hair, no choking hazards, and certainly no minced meats….just delicious fluffy cake!

I am particularly fond of the dessert portion of any meal and our wedding was no exception.  My husband and I are extreme chocoholics and that was certainly reflected in our decadent chocolate wedding cake with chocolate ganache:

Yes that is indeed a huge pile of Lindt truffles (milk & dark chocolate) on the top…delish! Needless to say our top tier didn’t have a shot of seeing our one year anniversary…it didn’t last more than a week after the wedding!

While we went with a pretty traditional American style wedding cake, there are all kinds of interpretations of cake and traditions pertaining to dessert at weddings around the globe.

Let’s take a look at what they are enjoying around the world…

France

The croquembouch is the traditional French dessert served at weddings.  The word comes from the French saying “croque en bouche” or “crunch in mouth.”  It consists of choux pastry puffs filled with vanilla pastry cream which are stacked into a cone shape then drizzled with caramel.  Once it hardens the caramel acts as a “glue” to hold everything together.  Often the cakes are then decorated with candied almonds, flowers, ribbons or chocolate.

Germany

The Germans are serious about wedding cake.  The traditional Baumkuchen or “Tree Cake” requires a rotating spit not to mention a wealth of patience to complete.  The idea is that a very thin layer of batter is brushed onto the spit and allowed to cook golden brown at which time the process is repeated over and over again until you get something that looks like this:

The result?!  When you cut into the cake it looks very similar to the rings that you would find were you to cut down a tree and look at the cross section left behind.

Norway

The traditional cake of our Norwegian counterparts is the Kransekake.  This creation is primarily almonds, sugar and egg whites and is most often seen with the ring design shown below.

Sweden

Spettekaka is the wedding cake of choice for those in the Scania region of Sweden.  It is a combination of eggs, potato flour and sugar which is cooked over an open fire resulting in a very dry outcome.  To preserve the dry dessert it is wrapped until just moments before serving.  A hacksaw blade is typically used to cut into the creation-a seemingly odd tool for a cake.  A standard knife (or too much pressure with the blade) will actually cause the cake to crumble and break so the person doing the cutting needs a certain level of finesse!

Now that we have seen what they are eating around the world, for my next Traditions and Trivia post I will explore the history of the wedding cake and how it got it’s big break…stay tuned!