Choosing Your Wedding Cake

Before you order your cake, try to look at as many bridal and gourmet magazines as you can, and search for examples on the internet. Print, copy or tear out pictures of the cakes you love and try to work out why you like them:

• Are you drawn to a particular design element or look?
• A particular shape - round, square, heart or hexagonal?
• One layer - or perhaps four or five? Keep in mind, the right silhouette for your cake will be a combination of your style and the number of guests you'll need to feed.
• Do you like tiered cakes supported by columns, or a more modern stacked cake?
• Highly decorated, or plain and simple?
• Classic white, or maybe hot pink?

Knowing what design elements you like will give you an advantage when you start to talk to your cake maker. They will also have a brochure of their styles of cakes and decorations for you to look at, which you should be able to modify and personalise to design your perfect cake. Bear in mind that the more intricate the design the more expensive it will be, so make sure you discuss the final costs before making a confirmed order.

Taste

You also need to think about how you want your cake to taste - you may not want a traditional fruit cake, and would much rather opt for a moist carrot cake, a gooey chocolate cake or even a cheesecake.

A good cake supplier will offer you the opportunity to taste their products - a hard job, but someone has to do it!

Alternatives

You might want to consider a croquembouche. Literally meaning "crack in one's mouth", a croquembouche is a traditional French wedding cake consisting of puffs of choux pastry filled with a vanilla creme patissiere, held together with a delicious cobweb of caramel. Although spectacular-looking, they tend to be quite expensive as it must be handmade on the day of the wedding. Traditionally, the croquembouche is served by hitting it hard with a sword, with the bridesmaids catching the pieces in a tablecloth.

Another alternative is a plate of fairy cakes piled high. These may be iced to match your colour scheme or decorated with fresh fruit and flowers.

Making it Yourself

Because the cake can be baked months before the wedding, it is possible to bake one at home in advance when not preoccupied with the last minute wedding arrangements. Cake tins of appropriate sizes are available for hire.

Some cake confectioners provide a cake decorating facility. This may be the solution if you have an old family cake recipe you want to use but are less confident about your decorating skills.

The croquembouche is traditionally served by hitting it hard with a sword, with the bridesmaids catching the pieces in a tablecloth.

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