How to choose a wedding cake

Bright floral cakes work well with buttercream

The wedding cake business has gone crazy. After a few years of alternative fads: cheese cakes; doughnut walls; cupcake towers and so on, couples have returned to the showstopping wedding cake as the centrepiece of their wedding reception.

How do you choose the perfect wedding cake for you? There are thousands of possibilities.

Firstly, decide whether you want a fondant or buttercream wedding cake. They’re very different in style and taste. A fondant cake (made by an experienced baker) will suit a contemporary, geometric design or a sleek and elegant look. It will be covered in a white or coloured sugarpaste to give a smooth accurate finish. A buttercream wedding cake will have more character. It could be rustic or decorated with a piped, painted or sculpted floral decoration. VERY generally, people tend to prefer the taste of buttercream to fondant.

When you’ve decided which finish suits you, your venue, your flowers and which would express best the style of your day, look at cake makers that offer whichever finish you have chosen within a deliverable distance of your venue. This will vary. I’m one of only a handful of buttercream cake makers in the country so I cover a large area. A busy fondant baker based in a large town may have a shorter delivery distance.

Busy floral cakes look their best against a plain background

Here’s where the overwhelm will kick in. If you search for wedding cakes on Pinterest or Instagram, you’ll be lost in a sea of beautiful wedding cakes very quickly. No successful cake designer will copy another cake anyway. So, either choose a maker with a distinctive style that you like, or one that has good reviews and who’s work has a beautiful finish, and approach them with some imagery that reflects your individual style: flowers that you love, your invitations, pictures of your venue and generally anything with a decorative finish that appeals to you. I’ve built up successful designs from snippets of embroidery and even a lampshade. It’s important that your cake brings together all the visual elements in the space, and key to this will be your flowers. Also important is the backdrop. If you cake will be in front of a huge tapestry (annoying) or close to patterned curtains or wallpaper, your cake will need to complement its surroundings by interpreting these patterns in some way or providing a minimalistic foil to stand out against them. Colour is key here.

If you’re drawn to busy floral prints, antique lace, mid century graphic design, Art Deco, Anthropologie patterned fabrics, Cos minimalism, yellow, country styling…….collect images of anything that reflects this and show your cake maker. This will enable her, or him, to create a cake that reflects your individuality and that you will love. Most of my customers are fans of Liberty, §111q1

If you love sunshiny yellow, but your flowers are pink, combine them on your cake. Yellow really makes pink pop!

Of course it’s important to discuss the size of your cake: how many servings you’ll need and how tall does the cake need to be to be visible across the venue space? And flavours. Most wedding cake makers offer an array of delicious flavours. You’ll be able to try these at a tasting. By all means ask if you have a special cake in mind that they don’t offer, maybe it’s an old family recipe, but many of us work with tried and tested recipes that we know will produce a cake that retains its quality for however long it takes to decorate.

Maybe your choice will be restricted by budget. In an ideal world, Ideally tell your chosen cake maker what you want to spend. And ask about their prices. This is the only way to get the absolute best cake possible. No cake maker wants to make a crap cake to be posted all over social media, so they will always want your cake to be amazing. Without knowing where the hard work is or what the most expensive ingredients are, you could risk losing out on the cake of your dreams for the sake of £60 by assuming that special detail will push it over budget.

I will always try to create a cake that incorporates all the details that a couple loves, whatever their budget. It may be that the cake will have a cascade of a particular flower instead of an all-over design, or it may have two rather than three tiers. Or the design may be painted rather than sculpted (more time-consuming).

Be realistic about price. It can take two days to bake and stack a three tier cake accurately before decorating can begin. It may contain 50-60 eggs and 4kg of top quality chocolate. An elaborate design could take two to three days to complete and delivery can tie up an entire day. In London, a three tier wedding cake to serve 110 will most probably cost £500-£750, and may cost as much as £1,250. Generally speaking, fondant cakes are more expensive than buttercream as the detail is hand-modelled rather than painted or piped, but there are all sorts of variables.

Book it soon. don’t wait until two months before your wedding to order a cake. Successful cake makers get booked up months in advance and they have one pair of hands each. Pay a deposit to secure your date if undecided on the design and firm up on the details nearer the time.

Dont forget that planning your cake is fun!!