The history of cakes at weddings
In Western cultures, since antiquity. Weddings customarily have been celebrated with a special
cake. Ancient Roman wedding ceremonies were finalized by breaking a cake of wheat or barley over
the bride’s head as n symbol of good fortune. The newly married couple then ate some of the
crumbs together. Afterward, the wedding guests gathered up the remaining crumbs as tokens of
good luck. Wedding guests were also supplied with sweetmeats called confetti, a sweet mixture of
nuts, dried fruit and honeyed almonds. Handfuls of confetti were showered over the bride and
groom; indeed, it seems to have been the custom to throw confetti about enthusiastically. Eventually,
confetti in the form of sweets and nuts was replaced with rice, flower petals, or colored paper, and
these new types of confetti continue to be thrown over newly married couples in many countries
around the world.
When the Romans invaded Britain in 43 AD, many of their customs and traditions became part of
British life. These customs included their wedding customs, and when the Normans invaded Britain
in 1066 they brought many French traditions. Other changes came about due to increased trade and
contact with Europe, but present-day British wedding traditions remain firmly rooted in the past. In
medieval Britain, small spiced buns, which were common everyday fare, were often eaten at
weddings. These were stacked in a towering pile, as high as possible. If the bride and groom were
able to kiss over the tall stack, it augured a lifetime of riches. The earliest British recipe exclusively
for eating at weddings is Bride Pie, which was recorded in 1685. This was a large round pie with an
elaborately decorated pastry crust that concealed a filling of oysters, pine nuts lamb and spices.
Each guest had to eat a small piece of the pier not to do so was considered extremely impolite. A
ring was traditionally placed in the pie, and the lady who found it would be next to marry.
In the 17th century, Bride Pie was changed into Bride Cake, the predecessor of the modern British
wedding cake. Cakes containing dried fruit and sugar, symbols of prosperity, gradually became the
centerpieces for weddings. Some people made Bride Cake in the cheaper form of two large rounds
of pastry sandwiched together with currants and sprinkled with sugar. Very few homes at the time
could boast of having ovens, but this type of pastry cake could be cooked on a baking stone on the
hearth.
Later in the 17th century, there was a new development when wedding cakes began to be made in
pairs, one for the bride and another for the groom. Both cakes were dark, heavy fruitcakes; the
groom’s cake was smaller than the bride’s cake, and was cut up into little squares that were placed
in boxes for the guests to take home as a wedding memento. Groom’s cakes gradually died out and
are no longer part of British weddings. However, the tradition has undergone a revival in the United
States, where for many years the groom’s cake has served as a wedding gift for guests. Modern
groom’s cakes are often formed and decorated to depict the groom’s hobby, for example a golf bag,
a camera, a chess board.
Groom’s cakes were never covered with icing, but Bride Cake covered with white icing first appeared
sometime in the 17th century. After the cake was baked, it was covered with a pure white, smooth
icing made with double refined sugar, egg whites, and orange-flower water. The mixture was beaten
for two hours, then spread over the cake and dried in the oven until hard. A pure white color was
much sought after for wedding cake icing because white icing meant that only the finest refined
sugar had been used. Thus a pure white cake was a status symbol, as it displayed the family’s
wealth.
The late 1800s in Britain saw the introduction of a new tradition, with the first multi-tiered wedding
cakes. These were impressive cakes: they were heavy because they were made with so much dried
fruit, and highly decorated with icing and embellished with sugar flowers, doves, horseshoes and
bells. The first multi-tiered cakes comprised iced cakes stacked on top of each other rather like a
succession of boxes gradually decreasing in size. The cakes from the upper tiers did not sink into
the lower tiers because they were a bit put on top of each other until the icing between each cake
had had time to harden. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century that the cake tiers were
separated and supported by columns.
Twenty-first-century weddings are big business for Britain’s wedding industry. Over 300,000 people
get married each year and a wedding can cost thousands of pounds. The cost of the all-important
wedding cake can be hundreds of pounds, depending on the dimension and design. It will be
interesting to see whether wedding cakes continue to be popular at weddings.
