What's It Wednesday: Here Comes the Cake!
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It’s wedding time!
We have entered the most popular time of the year for weddings. According to a survey conducted by The Knot, 73% of all weddings in 2019 took place between June and October.
One of the major components of a wedding celebration is the cake. It is a tradition that goes back to Roman times. Then, a wedding cake was more bread-like, unsweetened and made from barley. Part of the bread was eaten by the groom and part was broken over the bride’s head for good luck.
In England during the Medieval period, wedding cakes were sweetened rolls that were stacked high. Tradition suggested that the bride and groom would kiss over the stack of buns (without toppling the pile) to ensure a prosperous life together.
In the 16th and early 17th centuries, wedding cakes took the form of Bride’s pies. These pies were traditionally savory – made of a sweetbread mincemeat.
In the late 1700’s, Antoine Careme (1783-1833) a French pastry chef, invented in the croquembouche. Reminiscent of the stacked sweetened rolls of medieval England, Croquembouche is a tower of cream-filled, puff-pastry balls piled into a high pyramid and topped with caramelized sugar.
As refined sugar made its way into use in early 1800s, sweetened cakes became more popular for wedding celebrations. Refined sugar was whiter and purer in color than raw sugar and more expensive. It became the sugar used for cake frosting, particularly in the more affluent and prosperous families.
It was the wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1840, which set the standard for ‘modern’ wedding cakes and introduced the idea of a wedding cake topper. John Mauditt, Queen Victoria’s confectioner, covered the cake in white “royal icing”. The cake was 9 ft in around and weighed over 308 lbs. It was topped with sugar figures of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert dressed in ancient Greek costume.
Wedding cake toppers became the favored decoration for wedding cakes by the late 1880s. At first, they weren’t very extravagant. During this time, toppers were hand-made from frosting, icing or plaster of Paris, often by a relative or a local baker. In Britain, figures of the bride and groom, standing side by side in their wedding attire became popular with middle class and affluent families.
In the US, in the early 1900s, the toppers were often confectionery flowers, wedding bells, rings or items special to the couple.
It wasn’t until the 1920s that Americans embraced the concept of bride and groom figurines atop wedding cakes. In her 1922 book, Etiquette: In Society, In Business, In Politics and at Home, Emily Post wrote that a “wedding cake is an essential of every wedding reception” and described topping the cake with bride and groom figures to complete the decorations.
Wedding cake toppers received another boost in the 1920s when Sears & Roebuck began to mass-produce, advertise, and sell bride and groom cake toppers. Demand was so great that by 1927, the company’s shopping catalog included a full page of bride and groom figurines. Toppers were manufactured using celluloid, wood, paper and porcelain.
Following WWII, groom figurines wearing military uniforms were introduced. By then, figurines of couples for wedding cakes were available in porcelain and mass production made them affordable.
By the 1950s, some type of cake topper was customary on any wedding cake. Choices were not limited to figurines. Many brides chose to have fresh flowers or symbolic tokens like sugar doves or hearts. Today cake toppers are available in many shapes, sizes, and materials - as monograms, silhouettes, and figurines that recognize and celebrate gender, race and culture.
Are you attending or having a wedding this summer? Enjoy the cake!
Thanks for reading!
Marilyn
I’d love to hear your comments and memories. Please comment or email mhelmers@andovercenterforhistoryandculture.org
Resources
Andover Center for History and Culture collection
Americanhistory.si.edu