History of Wedding Cakes

Ever since the medieval times, wedding cakes have been part of wedding ceremonies. They used to be made of wheat as a symbol of prosperity and fertility. Furthermore, fertility-wise, the cake used to be thrown at the bride. Thankfully, our modern bride pay a lot for the wedding day makeup and throwing icing at it won’t be fun. It was around 1900 when the Romans started baking wheat with salt into small cakes. In the ceremony, the groom would eat part of loaf of barley bread and would break the rest over the bride’s head. It was a symbol of great fortune and blessing. The crowd would then try to take some of the bread for themselves as it was believed that whoever touches the bread would have the same good fortune, many children and be blessed. And the customs also said that only a child born from parents who had this kind of marriage could qualify for high administration in Roman culture. Having celebrated this way, their children, unborn still, are believed to bring good fortune. Breaking the bread over the bride’s head symbolizes the dominance of the groom over his spouse. Now, the cake took its large, modern turn and it is completely unpractical to break the cake over the future-wife’s head. The tradition became physically impractical and quickly disappeared. There are some reports of the oatcake being broken over the bride’s head, but rarely, in Northern Scotland. Then the crowd would put a napkin on her head and pour a basket of breads on her. This tradition is now also dead. In Medieval England, wedding cakes were actually breads with four-flour base foods and no sugar. The breads were actually mandatory in every celebration, not just weddings. Some funny reports say that there was a custom where a large pile of buns was placed in front of the marrying couple. If they are able to kiss over the pile, it is considered that the marriage will be a lifetime of prosperity. This was particularly a practice in Christian Matrimony where the groom kisses the bride after exchanging vows. After that, the cake made a modern turn, and now we have wedding cakes with many stories and layers instead of a pile of buns. During the reign of King Charles II, a French chef visited London and was simply horrified by the tradition of the cake-piling. He was traveling around Europe and noticed that if you pile smaller cakes then you will get a solid stacked system. These kinds of cakes needed a lot of time to prepare, so they could be frosted in a bid to make them still and firm. Due to lack of modern refrigerating techniques cakes were frosted in lard to avoid drying out. Then, they scraped the lard just before the serving. In later years, sugar was added to improve the taste. Also, with the improvement of kitchen tools, cakes were made more solid, sweeter and they left the lard to stay on the cake in the form of decorative icing. Although you get a lot of varieties of cakes these days, but for the wedding day people tend to choose designer cakes these days. These cakes are custom made with a good theme kept in mind. Couples also tend to choose cakes with more and more layers. It is a tough task for the chef to prepare such cakes. These days at any wedding occasions you will not miss to see some good delicious designer cakes. In India, and especially in Kerala, Matrimony is incomplete without such cakes with modern designer twists.

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