History of the Wedding Cake

Wedding Cake History

The mid 17th century saw the advent of the plum cake as a wedding cake - a fashionable French import usually gracing the tables of the rich. These plum cakes were quite literally sugar coated with white icing and as such proved to be indicative of affluence, as refined white sugar was difficult to acquire. White also came to symbolise the purity of the virgin bride, a tradition that is still very much recognised today. However, for those less wealthy, the bride's pie was a more familiar dish. Often the bride's pie was filled with mincemeat or sweet breads, in which a ring was placed. It was said that the lady who found the ring would be the next to wed.

The plum cake remained in vogue as a wedding cake into the 19th century, but by the middle of the century wedding cakes were beginning to once again stack, but this time into a neat multi-tiered cake. The multi-tiered cakes were originally only meant for English royalty, and often the top layers were only sugar. The first wedding to see a wholly edible multi-tiered cake was a royal wedding of 1882. It was during this era that it became more popular to distribute the cake amongst guests both present and absent from the ceremony.

The popularity of the multi-tier wedding cake as we know it today continued into the early 20th century - however these were still the centrepiece of choice of the rich. The introduction of supporting columns also appeared around this time, as a means to support and separate the tiers. From the 1930s onwards, wedding cakes began to take on all manner of shapes and sizes, and gradually the frosting and decoration of the cake became more elaborate throughout the twentieth century.

The 1930s also heralded a variation in the meaning of cutting the cake for the bride and groom - it became more of a joint effort in symbolising the sharing of life, wealth and fortune with friends and family, as well as each other. The top layer of cake is often kept and eaten either on the first anniversary of marriage, or at the christening of the first child.

The 20th century saw the tradition of the groom's cake re-emerge in North America from its English Middle Ages roots. The belief was that if a single woman put a piece of this cake under her pillow, then that very night she would dream of the man she was to wed. The groom's cake was also a perfect candidate for the means to display wealth during the Industrial age of America. However, in modern times it is more often than not used in the rehearsal dinner, or as a second cake in the wedding reception.

Up until about thirty years ago, the traditional fruitcake was widely replaced by the introduction of either a chocolate cake, or humorous novelty cake as groom's cake. It can serve as a contrast to the whiteness of the white 'bridal' cake. Humorous and novelty cakes are also quite favorable.

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