Wedding cake myths

Sadie painted cake, serves 100, £520

Sadie painted cake, serves 100, £520

Unless you’ve been in suspended animation for the last four decades, you’ll have realised by now that you don’t have to have a traditional fruit cake covered in marzipan and decorated with royal icing on your wedding day. Here are some other myths surrounding wedding cakes.

  • Wedding cakes are always FONDANT and I hate fondant. I’ve not been asked to make a fondant cake for five years. Fondant is well and truly on the way out. As well you know. Next.

  • CAKE TOPPERS are original, witty and communicate the whackiness of the couple getting married. No. A pair of minions, Lego deep sea divers, unicorns, beer bottles....all rubbish attempts to convey humour using hideous primary colours, which will ruin every photo taken inside the venue. 

  • Everyone gets a TEENY TINY piece of wedding cake: it’s just a tradition and not really part of the food story. All cake is food. A buttercream wedding cake is entirely delicious and everyone needs to have a big frosted slice for their pudding. There are hundreds of different sponge and filling options available. You cake maker will have worked hard to ensure that each is fantastic. Eat it all. Also, you’re looking at paying around £5 per portion of a beautifully decorated centrepiece dessert. Your caterer probably won’t dish up trifle for that.

  • A buttercream cake will MELT in the summer. It definitely won’t. We all work with different types of stable buttercream, which will stay put for hours, unless you blast it with a hairdryer.

  • Wedding cakes are WHITE. I made just two white wedding cakes last year. A white cake needs so much texture for any design to stand out in photos because you’re relying on light and shade for it to make sense. Use your cake to bring together the colours of your wedding flowers, or the palette used in your stationery. A white cake will slip into the shadows like meh.

  • We only need a LITTLE CAKE because we have an intimate wedding with 40 guests. Build it up with dummy tiers. A good cake maker will tell you the most cost-effective way to do this - it may be to add a little fake tier at the top or a big one at the bottom. Worth doing if you want your cake to have some impact.

Jess in claret, hot pink and smoke, serves 150, £890

Jess in claret, hot pink and smoke, serves 150, £890


 

Emma Page