Wedding Cake History

What in the world is a wedding cake, depends very much on where you got married.

The multi tiered wedding cake originated in the U.K. The name "fruitcake" can be

traced back to the Middle Ages, it stems from the latin fructar fruit.

The wedding cake as we know it today, with its successively smaller layers, supported by pillars, with its fancy icing, had its origins in a confection that commemorated the marriage of one of Queen Victoria's daughters in 1859. Even then, a few refinements were missing, only the base tier was actually cake, and the rest were dummies. The reason for this is that the Victorian bakers could not separate the layers successfully, the heavier top layers sank into the cake.

The wedding of Prince Leopold in 1882 was the first time guests could enjoy an entirely "cake" wedding cake, and another 20 years before the tiers were separated by columns, which were initially disguised broom handles.

In medieval England, guests would bring small, home-baked cakes to the ceremony and present them as a gift to the bridal couple. It was traditional to pile the cakes in as high a stack as possible,  making it a difficult challenge for the newlyweds to kiss one another over the top of the cake. If the couple managed the kiss, it was considered an auspicious symbol of prosperity. It is from this "over-the-top" kiss that little bride and groom cake toppers evolved.

It was not until the reign of King Charles II that it became customary to stack the cakes neatly and frost them. This, of course, was the forerunner of today's tiered wedding cake.

Usually multi-tiered and imposing, the wedding cake in Great Britain today, functions more as a symbol than as a dessert. The cake is a centerpiece for the reception. It is elaborately decorated and given a position of honor.

The French also assert that the wedding cake tradition began in their country. Wedding cakes in France and Belgium tend to follow one of two styles.

The more traditional style is the croquembouche, a cone made of round cream- filled pastries which is dipped in hot toffee. When the toffee cools, it hardens to

form a solid structure upon which decorations are placed.

The manner in which this cake is served is interesting and unusual,

for each guest is served several pastries which are actually broken out from the main structure. The second style is baked as multiple round sponge cakes of

graduated diameters. The cake is stacked with the largest on the bottom,

tapering up to the smallest on the top. There can be as many as ten layers. With a cake this large, a center support through the middle of the cake is necessary to keep it upright. Presentation of the cake is reserved for the late hours of the reception, as a glorious ending to the meal.

Although we must admit that much of the tradition of the wedding cake may have its roots in European tradition, particularly in England, in our country we have taken the wedding cake to new extremes and made it the focal point of creativity and individual expression. The wedding cake, in the hands of a creative cake designer, can be a mechanism through which the bride and groom can reflect their individual lifestyles and their personalities. Wedding cakes in our country appear in a myriad of sizes, shapes, colors and flavors.

Wedding cakes in Australia also have their roots in the tradition of Great Britain, which probably explains the similarity in style between the Australian and the British wedding cake. Also multi-tiered, decorations on the Australian cake tend to have softer edges which, in turn, give the cake a rounder look. The top of the cake, usually free of decorations, sets the Australian cake apart from its British cousin. The base of the sides of the cake is generally piped with decorations.

In India, particularly in the southern part of the country, British influence is also obvious. The multi-tiered fruit-based cakes typical in the Christian population, take on a somewhat new twist. To avoid some of the expense of creating a large wedding cake, a high, "dummy cake," covered in sugar icing may be used. The cake cutting ceremony is still an integral part of the wedding, so a slice of real cake is inserted into the dummy cake for purpose of cake cutting. What the guests get to eat is not the cake, but instead, a piece of the icing.

Traditional Japanese wedding cakes take on an entirely different form.

Because cakes were much too expensive to make, in their stead artificial cakes, with "icing" of hard wax were used. So as not to eliminate the cake cutting, a slot

was created in which the bride and groom could insert a knife, creating a

symbolic cake ceremony.

For added effect during cutting, some cakes were designed with a lever, which when depressed, would emit a burst of steam as the knife entered. Nowadays a sponge cake is more in the United States common. In Southern Europe in Italy and Spain an uncooked chocolate cake is not unusual. Mexico favors little biscuits as the mainstay of their celebrations and this is also typical in Southern Italy where a wedding cake is a pyramid of mixed biscuits.