As traditional wedding activities such as throwing the bouquet and finding the garter come and go in popularity, so too does the traditional wedding cake. Jon and I are not cake people -- we're more the brownie, cookie, doughnut and ice cream types. So when it came time to make the decision of whether of not to have a wedding cake, we initially shrugged it off. Cakes can range anywhere from $100 to thousands of dollars. With flavors ranging from classic chocolate and vanilla to dulce de leche and s'mores, the options have certainly kept up with the times. Yet, even when you do find a great tasting cake, most people don't even touch it once it's sliced and on a plate.

That said -- call me a traditionalist -- part of me still wants to actually feed my new husband on our first wedded day together. We started playing around with options -- cupcakes (been there, done that), bars, mini pies -- we just can't pinpoint what we want.

Did you offer a dessert bar or cake or both at your wedding? Especially if you offered something out of the ordinary, please share your sweet ideas with me in the comment section.



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Who wants to invite me to a wedding with this cake? Please? I want it! I admit - it might be a little more pricey than the cake you were thinking of getting, but it's healthier. Surely sticking pieces of sushi in each other's faces is more romantic than frosting. Although, if you really wanted some frosting, perhaps you could add a green wasabi frosting. I'd be OK with that.

If you need some help with it, you should know that the picture came from the wedding of Jef and Jin Yoon and the cake maker has shared the recipe on her website. Now, you've got no excuses. It's sushi time!

[via Baking Bites]

I'm not married, so I spend a lot of time thinking about my wedding cake-to-be. I often thumb through Martha's book on wedding cakes on the floor of Barnes & Noble, and I can't pass a window full of them without gazing longingly. They're just so beautiful.

In all of this fantasizing, it's never occurred to me to think about having a cake made out of something other than cake. Like, for example, cheese. But apparently cheese cakes are becoming trendy in countries like New Zealand -- layers and layers of gorgeous, decorated cheese. Has anyone ever actually witnessed or tasted one of these? Would you consider having one?

Last weekend, some good friends of mine got married. It was a lovely, low-key wedding and reception, held on a farm in Lancaster County. Instead of having a traditional wedding cake, they asked the guests to bring desserts for a final course smorgasbord. I brought my favorite flourless chocolate cake, as well as a walnut cake that I've been eying in Cooking for Mr. Latte for quite some time.

The flourless chocolate cake was a huge winner, but the walnut cake wasn't nearly as popular. I ended up bringing the leftovers of that cake home with me, and when I checked back in with it the next morning, I was surprised to discover that it had turned tender and crumbly, and had lost the slight bitterness that it had had on the first day. Of course, Hesser does mention that it does get better from sitting, but I didn't realize how drastically the flavor would actually improve with a little resting time.

I've been eating it for breakfast all week, and I've just been loving it. I highly recommend it with coffee or tea and think it would make a wonderful treat if you were having friends over a simple dinner. The recipe is after the jump.

I'm usually the last person to get excited about wedding cakes. I'll leave it up to you gentle readers to decide whether this is because of a deep-seated fear of commitment; the fact that many wedding cakes are towering, multitiered butter-cream behemoths; or some combination of all of the above.

Despite my hardened exterior, I got a kick out of the cake pictured here, which features 400 Emperor Penguins arrayed around a series of icebergs. The groom's uncle spent three days painstakingly creating them out almond paste, cake and chocolate.

It seems that the penguin motif was not intended to reflect the wedding's lack of black-tie attire, but rather as an homage to the grooms' interests. Seems the fellow has been to Antartica five times.

[via boingboing]

I don't recall the 2nd amendment being written into the standard set of wedding vows, but then again, I'm also not from Texas, where this cake was prominently featured at a real wedding this past weekend. The gun was carved from a chocolate cake layer and stacked on top of the chocolate cake base, then decorated with rich frosting. The base is actually the shape of a target from the IPSC, a group that supports sport shooting and marksmanship.

Perhaps it's a less-than-common choice for a wedding cake, but all things considered, it's great that people are taking these celebratory cakes in new and unusual directions. After all, there is no reason why you have to have a plain white cake with flowers when you can have wedding cupcakes, snack food towers or anything that you (and your new spouse) really enjoy.

[via boing boing]

I am nowhere near getting married, but if I could somehow get cupcakes for a wedding delivered here from Australia, I might consider it.

These gorgeous cupcakes are made by Kylie Lambert for her bakery Le Cupcake...in Sydney Australia! I am sure the cupcake itself tastes great (it looks like vanilla), but it is the soft, subtle blue, and the detail of what is on top that got me. I suspect that Kylie pressed some sort of lace into fondant to create the look. Her other cupcakes are similar, some with the same lace impressions, others that are simply frosted, but have beautiful sugar decorations. I love the butterfly.

She doesn't have a website, but this photo, along with photos of all her cupcake artistry, is on Flickr.

Wedding cakes are always some of the most elaborate creations in the cake world, the perfect compliments to some of the most celebrated days. Wedding cakes can run into the hundreds and thousands of dollars, but few are as impressive as the cakes of celebrities. Used to being in the spotlight, what better way to highlight their wedding day than with a stunning cake? The Wedding Sutra has a photo gallery of many celebrity wedding cakes, and while the designs cover both the unique and the traditional, all are stunning. Above, you can see Mariska Hargitay's seven-foot-tall six-tiered chocolate and vanilla cake (left) and Leann Rimes' Chocolate Strawberry Cake, decorated with 35 dozen red roses (right). Getting inspired? If so, hopefully it's with ideas for your own cake and not for ways to gate-crash one of these weddings.

[via grow a brain]

You wouldn't want to eat it and neither did dear old Vera Howarth at her 98th birthday party for the multi-tiered cake is 111 years old.

Originally the fruit cake was a full seven-tiered jobby and was baked by Vera's mother, Mary Emma Illingworth, to celebrate her wedding to Samuel Smedley in 1895. After the celebrations, the remaining top tier was placed in a glass case and has been kept in the family since, being brought out only for special occasions.

The last time is was eaten was in 1945 to mark the couples golden wedding. Now the white icing has turned brown, the once silver sugar balls are black, and the fabric leaf decorations have wilted. A superb family tradition and one I wish my motley bunch of a family would do something similar. Thing is cake and the Barrow's don't last long in the same room...

I couldn't find a picture of a brown and cracked old bit-o-cake so a pic of Queen Vick will have to suffice. Just imagine QV is waiting for some underfoot man to pour the cream over a pile of chocolate brownies...

 

If you're getting married this summer, then you should already have a bakery lined up to do your wedding cake. Do you have any idea how long those things take to make?!

However, if you're planning your wedding for a little bit later, Flour Girl bakery in New York City has cakes that go beyond the white fondant, lace and pearls with fresh flower decorations. The cake decorations are cute and kitchsy, like theblack and white cake pictured at right.

Heck, even if you're not getting married, you can order a cake for any occassion, and who wouldn't want a birthday cake called "Think Pink," made of red velvet cake and pink-tinted raspberry buttercream? 

When you think about wedding cakes, chances are that you envision a tall, elegant dessert. It has sleek sides and might be adorned with splashes of sugar roses and pounds of buttercream frosting. Even if the cake is simple, ungarnished with excesses of sugar sculpture and fondant shapes, a wedding cake will always be elegant.

At least, almost always.

More and more couples are moving away from the traditional wedding cake model, having cupcake towers so that each guest can have an individual, elaborately decorated cake. The cupcakes maintain the elegance of tradition, but allow for an infusion of fun. Even further from the standard, however, is the snack-food cake. A snack food cake can be made of anything from Twinkies to Snowballs and chocolate donuts. What I didn't realize was how much the trend towards down-market "cakes" was catching on until I saw a "cake" of homemade Ding Dongs in the New York Times wedding announcements over the weekend.

Would you have wanted this at your wedding? Are you considering it for the future? I can't say that I would want it, but I would definitely serve ice cold milk, and not champagne, if I did.

[Image NYT] 

While obsessively trolling the many wedding-planning blogs late last night, I came across these darling decorative accents for your wedding cake.

OK, I lied. I'm not sure how I found these. I think I plugged cake into a search engine. Either way, they're a hoot. I'd like to see it taken to the next level, though. Oh, say, a limited-edition bad celebrity marriage version.  Dennis Rodman-Carmen Electra could be the first set. Kinda like Homies. Then again, maybe not. 

You know this, right? The latest thing in wedding cakes - and by, "latest thing," I mean, "the fashion that began in Martha Stewart Weddings years ago and has now landed firmly in middle American weddings" - is to set cupcakes on wedding-style cake tiers. They can be artsy or prosaic, bold and beautiful or pasty pastel.

Best part about the cupcake tower is that it doesn't require any special skills beyond figuring out where to buy the plastic Romanesque tiers to set them on. You could even (yikes!) make your cupcakes with a mix. Got someone with passable baking skills in your wedding party? You no longer need to worry about whether your crucial middle layer will fall, or if you'll build a grand masterpiece only to have it crumble to pieces on the way to the reception. Get your friends a couple packages of cupcake liners and a bunch of baking pans, and you're golden. (Or, silver.)

Some might ask, does this make wedding cakery too accessible, with lovely creations available to the masses? Does this mean any amateur can get into the wedding-cake-making business? I say, as long as the cake is moist and the icing has lots of butter - go for it, middle America. Just make sure and get that invitation in the mail to me...