Choosing the style of your cake

Your wedding cake could be provided by your venue or an outside caterer, a pastissier, a supermarket (many do bake some sashing cakes), an mbitious novice, or a specialist cake designer. As always, a recommendation is the best palce to start when sourcing a supplier. Your venue or caterer may try and insist they provide they provide the cake, or they may recommend a preferred supplier. Before agreeing to this, or to anyone supplying your wedding cake, ensure you see and taste examples and use the following advice to assess their suitability and expertise. Cake baking and decorating is a specialist craft. What kind of specialist you go to will depend upon budget, the style of cake you want and how complicated it is. A simple cake, especially if you have limited funds, could be provided by someone with less expertise and experience. But for a formal spectacular cake you'll need to call-in the experts.

A good time to come and talk about your cake is when you have chosen your dress and flowers and have an idea of the style of your day. Ideally, allow at least three months in advance. Take with you any ideas you already have. Books, magazines and the internet can offer inspiration. Think first about the style of your celebration: is it a simple contemporary wedding or a more formal and/or lavish occasion? Do you need a formal, tiered, iced cake or a sculptural creation? Should the cake form a dramatic centrepiece or can it be something more informal, funky or fun? Think too of the venue; scale is important, particularly if the cake is to be a foacl point. How many people has it got to feed? When will you serve it and what will you have eaten already? Do you want to serve the cake as dessert (if you do, you could opt for a cheese course instead of  a pudding or ice cream from your venue or caterer)? Do you want tiers of several flavours? Consider your flowers, colours, themes you may have chosen, the time of year, the time of day and how long the has to stand before it is cut and served. These are your starting points, but visit suppliers with an open mind. Trained cake designers may think ofthings and have ideas that you have not thought of. As with the rest of you wedding day, the cake should reflect your personalities. Think also of how the wedding cake is going to be part of your day.

It's a good plan to have an idea of the menu for your wedding dinner so you can see how the cake is going to fit-in. The first question to ask is: how many people will the cake need to serve?  That gives an indication of how big your cake should be. For a more intimate wedding, or perhaps a second marriage celebration, a beutifully decorated two-tiered, stacked cake could be appropriate. Or for smaller celebrations you could have individual cakes set-up on a stand; because the number of tiers build-up very quickly the result is quite dramatic and beautiful.

 
For a very large gathering we'd suggest working with fake tiers: you have a base tier for the bride and groom to cut, but the rest of the tiers are made up with polystyrene inside, but iced and decorated in the normal way. The cake provider can than bake and additional cake to the cutting cake that can be plated-up in the kitchen. This greatly assists the caterer as all they have to do is pre-slice the cake, then plate and serve it as soon as you have cut the other cake.

If serving the cake as your dessert, you can add other accompaniments; perhaps brandy sauce with a fruit cake, raspberry coulis with chocolate cake and garnish with fresh fruits and berries, edible flowers or nuts. Because it can take time to plate and serve the cake, you may decide to cut it either before the wedding dinner (perhaps with a blast of confetti from a confetti gun as you enter the dining room?) or following the first course.

If you want a cake in addition to dessert, think about what youare serving  for dessert. If you are serving a chocolate dessert, than consider an alternative flavour or flavours for the cake. The cake is usually served following speeches and toasts. Bear in mind when you are sampling the cake, that by the time you eat it on your wedding day, you may well have consumed canapés, champagne, a substantial meal and wine, so you will need a cake that will satisfy the palate without having a huge slice. It needs to have a gusty flavour that standsup to a champagne toast and 'packs a punch'. You could also consider serving the cake later in the celebration, maybe towards the end of the evening when dancing guests might feel peckish.