My personal favorite has always been butter cream! Meringue can be used too, but it is difficult to work with. Fondant, look really nice but doesn't taste very good. Definitely do a taste test with whomever does your cake to be sure you like the flavor. Here is the recipe that my mother used when she made wedding cakes:
8 Tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 bag of confectioners sugar
3/4 cup
|
 |
2 Tablespoons of heavy whipping cream (in the dairy section next to half and half)-do not substitute with "fake" whip cream that comes in a can or in tubs!
Mix: until light and fluffy, takes about 5 minutes, you can also add coco powder to add a chocolate flavor. It is great for all cakes, not just wedding cakes. |
White or Vanilla is traditional, and there is nothing wrong with that; but for those of you wanting something a little more: ADD FLAVOR! My three tier wedding cake was a different flavor each layer. We had Vanilla, Chocolate and Carrot Cake, with butter cream frosting it tasted great! If you are having your cake made, the more flavors you add to it the more costly it will be (but the better it will taste!). Some other flavors you might enjoy: spice cakes ** lemon poppy seed ** German chocolate ** lemon (or other citrus) ** even a traditional white cake with fresh berried thrown in can add a lot of flavor!
This really depends on where you have your cake made. Most grocery store bakery's will charge about $1.25-$1.50 per slice, but if you use a chef it can run as much as $15 a slice! The key is to set a cake budget, if you really want a nice chef made cake, then perhaps you'll want to go with a small but fancy cake for the wedding party and sheet cakes for the other guests. Sheet cakes are a really good and inexpensive way to feed a lot of guests. You might also want to serve a grooms cake along with the wedding cake. Be sure that when you pick up your cake, you get a cutting guide, wedding cakes are designed to be cut a certain way to maximize the number of slices.
Some brides like to have their cake match the dress, lots of lace and pearls; while others want the cake to match the decor of the room. My personal favorite is a cake I did for a friends wedding. She wasn't picky about the cake (which is good because it almost melted over in the Kansas heat!) or even how it looked, she and her husband had a very simple outdoor ceremony. I wanted to keep with her simple theme, so the cake was "rustic" (not a smooth finish) and I decorated it simply with small sunflowers in a ring around each layer. It looked very simple and pretty (until it began to shift with the heat!!!), I ordered a dozen flowers for the three tiered cake and it cost a little over $20. Fresh flowers cannot be beat for cake decoration. You might also think about fruit, if one of your colors is blue or red, you might want to add blueberries or raspberries to the decorations of your cake.
A grooms cake, what is that you ask? A grooms cake is usually a supplement to the traditional wedding cake (to feed additional guests). The grooms cake is usually a chocolate or something other than the traditional white, and it usually has a shape to it (remember the one from Steel Magnolias?-the armadillo that was made with red cake filling?). You can be as creative as you want to be with a grooms cake, although they are traditionally not very fancy. Let your husband to be pick his favorite cake flavor, may in the shape or your state? a regular square? football? basket ball? Just have fun with it!
|
