THIS week we look at a wedding cake which is a must have at every wedding function. The question, however, is where did it originate from?
A wedding cake is the traditional cake served at wedding receptions following a meal. In some parts of England, the cake is served at a wedding breakfast in the morning following the ceremony, while in Zambia it is mainly done at the end of the celebration, after the speeches and after the meal.
In modern western culture, the cake is usually on display and served to guests at the reception. Traditionally, wedding cakes were made to bring good luck to all guests and the couple. Modernly, however, they are more of a centerpiece to the wedding and are not always even served to the guests.
Some cakes are built with only a single edible tier for the bride and groom to share.
Wedding cake can certainly range in size, design depending on the wedding.
Modern pastry chefs and cake designers use various ingredients and tools to create a cake that will reflect the personalities of the couple, butter cream, gum paste and chocolate are among some of the more popular ingredients used.
Along with ranging in size and components, cakes range in price cakes are usually priced on per-slice basis depending on the pastry chef hired to make the cake.
Wedding cake and cake decorating in general have become a certain pop culture symbol in western society.
In medieval England, wedding cakes were described as breads which were flour-based foods without sweetening.
The breads were included in many celebratory feasts of the day, not just at weddings. No account tells of a special type of wedding cake appearing at wedding ceremonies.
There are however, stories of a custom involving stacking small buns in a large pile in front of the newlyweds.
Stacked as high as possible the idea was to make it difficult for the newlyweds to kiss one another over the top.
If the bride and groom were able to kiss over the tall stack it was thought to symbolise a lifetime of prosperity.
Eventually the idea of stacking them neatly and frosting them together was adopted as a more convenient option.
It is told that later in the 1660’s during the reign of King Charles ll, a French chef (whose name unfortunately is now lost) visited London and was appalled at the cake-pilling ritual.
The chef, who was travelling through England at the time noticed the inconvenience of piling smaller cakes into a mound and conceived the idea of constructing them into a solid stacked system.
These earlier tiered wedding cakes utilised short-cut broom stick to separate their layers, since such elaborate wedding cakes needed to be prepared days in advance and because of the lack of modern refrigeration or plastic wraps.
The cakes were frosted in lard to keep them from drying out the lard was scraped off just before their serving.
In later years, sugar was added to improve the taste of the lard and allowed the lard to be left on the wedding cake as a decorative icing.
The wedding cake took yet another course correction when in the 17th century a popular dish for weddings became the bride’s pie. The pie was filled with sweet breads, a mince pie or may have been merely a simple mutton pie a main ‘ingredient’ was a glass ring.
An old adage claimed that the lady who found the ring would be the next to be married. Bride’s pies were by no means universally found at weddings, but there are accounts of these pies being made into the main centerpiece at less affluent ceremonies.
The name bride cake emphasized that the bride was the focal point of the wedding and then many other objects also were given the prefix of bride such as the bride bed, bridegroom and bridesmaid.
By the late 19th century, wedding cakes became really popular and the use of the bride pie disappeared.
Early cakes were simple single-tiered plum cakes, with some variations. There was also an unusual notion of sleeping with a piece of wedding cake underneath one’s pillow which dates back as far as the 17th century and quite probably forms the basis for the tradition of giving cake as a gift.
Legends has it that sleepers will dream of their future spouses if a piece of wedding is under their pillow.
In the late 18th century this notion led to the curious tradition in which brides would pass tiny crumbs of wedding cakes through their rings and then distribute them to guests who could in turn place them under their pillows.
The custom was curtailed when brides began to get superstition about taking their rings off after the ceremony.
The wedding cake is surrounded by superstitions, maidens would be invited to pull ribbons that are attached to the bottom layer of the wedding cake out of all the ribbons only one contains a charm or a ring, and whoever gets the charm will be the next person to marry, this is believed in a traditional American wedding.
The contemporary wedding cake has grown out of many traditions one of the first traditions began in Ancient Rome where bread was broken over the bride’s head to bring good fortune and fertility to the couple.
Fruit cakes were a sign of fertility and prosperity which helped them gain popularity because all married men wanted to have plenty of children, the bride’s cake eventually transformed into the modern wedding cake.
The modern wedding cake as we know it now originated at the wedding of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany in 1882, his wedding cake was the first to actually be completely edible.
Pillars between the cake tiers did not begin to appear until about 20 years later. The pillars were very poorly made from broomsticks covered in icing.
The tiers represented prosperity and were a status symbol because only wealthy families could afford to include them in the cake.
The colour white is frequently associated with virginity and purity. The cake was originally known as the bride’s cake therefore the colour white became common because the cake needed to reflect the bride. When Queen Victoria used white icing on her cake it gained a new title “royal icing”
The cutting of the cake is a task full of symbolism. The cake was originally intended to be distributed among the guests by only the bride because consuming the cake would ensure fertility.
As weddings grew and the number of guests increased this task became a joint venture the groom needed to help cut the growing cake and distributed it among their guests.
Layers of cakes began to pile up and the icing would need to support the weight of the cake making it very difficult for one person to cut.
The groom would assist the bride in this process. Once this tradition began the bride and groom would share a piece of cake before distributing it to the guests to symbolize their union and their promise to forever provide for each other.
I’m gathering information on the Zambian weddings from 1964 to 2014, from the stories told the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s wedding sound as if they were stress free.
We look forward to such write ups.
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