The Indulgent Cake

Nowadays when we think about wedding cakes we think about them being a reflection of the personality of the bride or the couple. If the wedding is themed the cake will often reflect that in some way, either using the colours, flowers, or a more literal design element for instance a beach themed wedding could have a cake decorated in muted colours with sugar shells or a palm trees. So you would probably be surprised to hear that the earliest wedding cake was recorded as being Roman and was a simple barley loaf that the husband would break over his wife’s head to show his dominance in the marriage. This was followed by the bride’s pie in medieval England, this pie would either have a sweet (sweet bread or mincemeat) or savoury (meat) filling depending on the brides families budget. The bride’s pie was a feature in weddings up until the late 19 th century when it was replaced with a single tiered plum cake(variations were often made). Royal icing was created in the late 1880’s and it was...