Goodbye wedding cakes. Hello pies, cheeses and explosions


Updated on 24 February 2012 | 0 Comments

Want to break with tradition at your wedding or civil partnership feast? There's never been a better time.

Couples are marrying later. They, rather than their parents, are paying for the party. So why shouldn’t they serve what they and their friends enjoy eating? Lovefood.com looks at some of the trends.

Vintage is so now

Vintage is the theme of this year’s  National Wedding Show at Olympia, West London  The retro trend is so well established that at Fair Cake’s cookery school in London, you can even do a Vintage Cupcakes cookery course.  But if you’re not so handy with the icing bag and sugar flowers yourself, the cake collections at Choccywoccydoodah, Brighton or Peggy Porschen, Belgravia are sure to inspire.

Young people prefer chocolate cake to fruit cake

‘Most young people don’t like fruit cake,’ says wedding cake maker, Helen Wraight, owner of the Foxy Cake Company in Eton, Berkshire,  ‘Chocolate is the most popular flavour but I’ve made rosewater sponge and even a Rocky Road refrigerator cake for previous clients.'  

‘A common trend is for the cake tiers to be different flavours (like lemon, chocolate and vanilla),’ reports Lovefood.com’s Kirsty Page in The Coolest Wedding Cakes. That’s if there is a cake at all. More than half of Helen’s customers order cupcake or brownie towers. Other sweet towers they could consider are Lamingtons, whoopie pies, or Indian sweets, to follow a spicy main course.

Savoury solutions

Increasingly, couples are choosing a centrepiece of pork pies or fine cheeses. They cut it for the photos, then use it as a mainstay of the buffet. Sarah Pettegree of Bray’s Cottage Pork Pies says: ‘We put pastry hearts or lettering on, and then your caterer or florist decorates the tower of pies with herbs or flowers at your end.’

And for a reception that will blow them away…

How about an exploding cake?  Since they started in 2007, jellymongers, Bompas and Parr, have made back-lit jelly towers for dozens of couples-to-be. Now they’re offering  to set charges inside your cake (or other food) for an explosive climax to the reception.

Harry Parr, partner, comments: ‘Blowing the cake up spares the stomach after a heavy meal and is a good way to wake guests up for the speeches.’ He concedes cream cake might be safer - and more fun - than fruit cake because of the possibility of flying almonds.  Safety goggles at the ready, everyone.

Did you break with tradition at your wedding? Are you planning to? Wow us with your inventiveness or if you’re a caterer, tell us what you can offer.

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