Choosing Your Wedding Cake – and Why The Season Really Does Matter
So it’s high summer and you want a wedding cake, and you want it to look really beautiful, but of course it’s got to taste great too. Can you really have exactly what you want at any time of year or are there factors you should bear in mind when looking for your perfect wedding cake?
Well yes, there are – unless you simply want your cake to look stunning but don’t value taste as much as looks. Long gone are the days when all couples would opt for fruitcake covered in marzipan, royal icing and fresh flowers. You can really do almost anything with fruitcake and it will behave perfectly as well as being made months in advance. Not that we don’t appreciate fruitcake at Cocoa & Whey Cakes. Sour Cherry and Orange Fruitcake with Pecans and Cherry Brandy is one of our favourite cakes. However, if you want a delicious lemon sponge filled with lemon curd and iced with real lemon buttercream, decorated with buttercream succulents and roses in mid August then you may have to bear a few things in mind if the weather is baking hot (excuse the pun) – like the melting point of real butter!
So how is it that you see so many beautiful wedding shots of couples in hot climates happily cutting slices out of elaborate buttercream and fondant covered cakes? It may come as a surprise, or not, that these cakes are often not real. They are cleverly constructed dummy cakes with a small slice of real cake inserted into a pre-agreed place on the dummy cake where the couple are told they can cut the first slice for their photograph. The real cake is somewhere else in a lovely cool kitchen ready to be cut up by the caterers and distributed in tip top condition to guests. Is this a bad thing or a problem? No, if it keeps everyone happy and the real cake and guests are safe – food safe that is. But in my view it does seem slightly absurd to be faking it to such an extent and it does matter if the decoration of a cake comes before its taste. Elaborate buttercream flowers that you see on cakes are invariably made with a high proportion of vegetable fat rather than butter. Not quite so much fun to eat if they just don’t taste so great. It really matters that your wedding cake tastes fabulous. After all, once your photos are taken, why have a cake if you and your guests can’t really enjoy it?
At Cocoa & Whey Cakes we only use butter in our cakes and real buttercreams. They really do taste so much better. If you ask us to do otherwise then we are happy to go along with your wishes so you can achieve the exact look that you want. It is your special day after all. But we would recommend to clients that they really balance look and taste when considering their wedding cake. Real food demands real consideration – and you don’t get many food items that are more important, symbolic or glorious than your wedding cake.
