Evolution of the wedding cake tradition

In our modern Western culture, the wedding cake is usually tiered, iced, and decorated per the desires of the bride. The cake at one wedding I recently attended included sheets of bling, which looked like rhinestones decorating the sides of the bottom tier. Now, the challenge is to craft a wedding cake in a way that can support the decorations and still be edible. As a result, wedding cakes have one more expense couples must figure in to the cost of their wedding. But once upon a time instead of a wedding cake there was bread. 

Karavay (bride bread) is still a Russian tradition.

The first wedding cake

Many wedding traditions are linked with superstitions from long ago, and the wedding cake is no different. Before there was cake as we know it, weddings were celebrated with unsweetened bread. In medieval times, this bread was made from wheat flour and water and was thrown at the bride during the ceremony to encourage fertility. In Russia today, wedding bread called karavay is still a center piece of weddings and is thought to represent fertility.

During Roman times, the bread evolved into a loaf of barley bread. The groom would take a bite of the loaf and then hold the remainder of the bread over the bride's head and break it showering her with crumbs. Crumbs falling from her head were thought to be good luck, but this practice also carried with it a reminder of the man's dominant role over the woman. It also marked the end of her virginal state. Guests in the meantime scrambled to pick up any pieces that fell to the floor to get a bit of that good luck for themselves.

Bride's Pie in wedding cake history

By the 17^th century, the barley loaf was replaced with what was called the "Brides Pie." It was a mince or mutton pie made with sweetbreads. Just to be clear, sweetbreads are not sweet. It's a name given to organ meat that comes from the thymus gland and pancreas. Each pie contained a glass ring in it, and the lady who found the ring in her piece of pie was believed to be the next to marry.

The first sweet wedding cake was a flat one tier plum cake.

Sweet brides cakes

In the 18th century, it was common to have to two white cakes. The groom's cake and the bride's cake. Guests most often ate the groom’s cake, and left the bride’s cake untouched to be saved in a tin of alcohol to be eaten on each wedding anniversary. 

Finally, in the 19^th century, sweet cakes emerged as the confection for wedding celebrations. They weren't anything elaborate like what we see today but were normally just a flat one tier plum cake with white icing. This cake was served but not eaten at the reception. Instead it was cut and boxed for guests to take with them when they left the reception. It was thought that if the bridesmaid slept with a piece of cake under her pillow she would dream of her future husband. (Don't ask me how they slept with plum cake under their pillow. What a mess!)

Cake became the preferred confection for wedding celebrations, but it didn't break in half like the bread and so the tradition changed. The cake was sliced on a table. Guests no longer scrounged about on the floor for a lucky crumb, but could now stand in line and be served a tiny morsel of luck which the bride passed through her wedding ring into their hands.

“It's a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!”

It was in Victorian times that wedding cake as we know it today started to be popular. It was at this time that the first white wedding cakes covered in white icing appeared. By this time, white had become the color that represented purity. However, they weren't called wedding cakes yet. Instead, they were known as the "bride's cake" with the bride elevated as the focal figure at the wedding. Charles Dickens' used this term in Great Expectations which was written in 1861 when describing Miss Havisham's wedding cake.

History of tiered wedding cakes

Tiered wedding cakes are a custom that developed from a game that had the bride and groom attempting to kiss over a higher and higher cake without knocking it over.

Today's couples have endless choices when it comes to wedding cakes. Instead of the traditional white cake, today's wedding cakes can be any flavor or a combination of flavors and can even be color-coordinated with the theme of the wedding.

Cutting wedding cake tradition

The cutting of the cake is also a wedding tradition and is something the bride and groom do together (at least the first slice), and this said to represent a promise to each other to always be there to help one another. Then traditionally, they each feed one another from that first slice which represents their willingness to provide for one another throughout life. Then there's the practice of smashing that cake all over each other's faces, but that's a story for another time.

 

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