While your wedding cake is certainly a delicious treat for your guests, it can also be an opportunity for added guest entertainment as well. A new study found that 82 percent of all wedding couples hired an expert baker to perform their wedding cake (also called a dessert table) in 2021. Yet the overwhelming majority of guests (over half) did not have an idea what kind of wedding cake to order or even how much their cake was going to cost them. The good news is that wedding cakes come in many sizes, flavors, and price ranges.
Most wedding cakes are traditionally round, but there are two very popular varieties: the wedding cake with chocolate frosting and the chocolate fondant icing cake. The most popular kind of chocolate cake, which also tends to be more expensive, is the chocolate fondant icing cake. This cake has a smooth chocolate cake and chocolate fondant icing that flow and cascades gracefully down the sides of the cake. Often this type of wedding cake comes in three parts: the bottom chocolate layer, the second chocolate layer with white fondant icing, and the cream chocolate layer which are the top layer with chocolate drizzle.
Other wedding cakes have several layers, although not as many as the traditional fruitcake. One of these cakes is the croquembouche, which is a long, tall, square-shaped cake that features multiple layers of bright red and yellow fondant that is layered and cascading down one side of the cake. In French, the word for croquembouche translates to “drip cake.”
Flowers are also an important part of wedding cakes. At the top of the cake, you will likely see a floral design like a bunch of flowers, sometimes all in bloom. The flowers are usually in white, pink, or lavender and are cut out using a fine tooth comb. Sometimes, if the baker has very experience, they will be able to use real flowers as decorations, but if you really want to be authentic, real flowers can be used. A bride’s flower of choice for this part of the cake is the rose, but any kind of flower arrangement will work. After the flowers are on top of the cake, a series of small cakes with petals made from fondant will be placed around the center.
There are a few other options for wedding cakes that aren’t quite traditional. For example, there is the Swiss cake, which is similar to the classic tiered cakes that you’ll find at most bakeries, except that they are usually round. A Swiss cake can have as much or as little decoration as the baker wants to put on it, and they are usually baked in a round or square shape. These types of wedding cakes are usually only limited by your imagination. Another interesting alternative is the tea-cutter wedding cakes, which look just like the classic tea-cutter cakes that are so common in tea houses, except they are cut in a more elaborate manner.
Now that we’ve discussed some of the more outrageous ones, we should probably discuss the traditional ones. One option that is still on the table for brides choosing a wedding cake is the traditional buttercream frosting wedding cake. A shot of this delicious cake can add just the right touch to the reception. Another traditional buttercream wedding cake that is still popular is the wildflower wedding cake, which is shaped like a wildflower and is available in many different flavors. If you can’t decide which one you’d like best, you can always have your baker to create a shot of your own favorite wildflowers for you.