Nearly every social event offers food in the celebration, birthdays, anniversaries, and weddings, are but a few of the events where food is an important part of the celebration. This article is about the wedding cake. People come to eat and drink and a great deal of work is put into the preparation for this day. A wedding is a way to celebrate the union of two people who are starting a life together. The wedding cake is often the focal point of the event. There are times that it is considered bad luck not to have a piece of the wedding cake.
There are specified rules for cutting the wedding cake that are a part of tradition. For instance, at a wedding reception, it is traditional to cut the wedding cake just before dessert is served, if the wedding reception takes place during lunch or the dinner hour. However, if the reception is held during tea or cocktails, the cake is cut just after all of the guests arrive. It is tradition for the bride and groom to cut and eat the first slice together, as a symbol of their choice to be together. The rest of the cake is sliced by the maid of honor or a family member.
Choosing a wedding cake is quite a task. Tradition calls for a white cake with white frosting for weddings. In this day and age, couples are choosing their favorite flavor. This has bakeries and cake decorators striving to offer a larger selection of cakes. yellow, chocolate, marble, fruit, pound are some of the cakes made for modern weddings.
Some wedding cakes offer a different flavor for each layer. White icing, while still ordered, has made way for a wider selection of frostings. Chocolate, mocha, lemon, and any other flavor you can imagine are used for wedding cake decorating. It is possible to customize your cake using all of your favorite flavors. How the wedding cake is decorated is a personal choice as well. You can have just about anything you can dream up put on a wedding cake including, fruit and even real edible flowers.
The wedding reception is the most anticipated part of the wedding. And everyone looks forward to seeing the cake cut and sharing it with the bride and groom as a symbol of good will and a hope, that as a couple, the bride and groom will be prosperous and fertile.
If you would like to become a cake decorator, there are several ways you can go about it. There are hundreds of books out there that will teach you how to decorate cakes, from the simple to the ornate.
The best way to learn cake decorating is to take a class. While DVD's, videos, and books are highly popular and informative, taking a class will help you move along faster. Another way to learn cake decorating, is to purchase one of the many videos or DVD's that will take you, step-by-step , through the cake decorating process. You will be able to get immediate feedback from the teacher, and they can see where you might be going wrong and correct you before the project is ruined.
Are you a wedding cake decoration novice and you find yourself with a wedding cake decoration disaster on your hand? If that is the case, you will find that it is nearly impossible to avoid wedding cake decoration disasters altogether. That is why you should always be prepared with a few cake decoration quick fix tips up your sleeve to make sure that a little problem does not keep you from achieving your ultimate goal of a lovely and uniquely decorated cake.
Tip #1: Bake Your Cake the Day Before You Are to Decorate It
This is a small and basic tip that can go a long way. Make sure that you bake your cake in advance of when it is to be decorated. Ideally, you will want a few hours between the times the cake has been baked to the time it will be decorated. This is important because you need the cake to settle and firm up before you begin to decorate it. Give the cake some time to settle down. If you try to decorate a freshly baked cake, you will find that it may be unstable, may give off too many crumbs, and will be difficult to work with.
Tip #2: Apply a Crumb Coat to Your Cake
What is a crumb coat, you are probably asking yourself? For most cake decorators, the biggest enemy is crumbs. Crumbs can get in the way of even the finest icing and steadiest hands. Avoid crumbs by applying a special crumb layer to your cake. The crumb layer, as the name implies, is simply a thin layer of icing that is applied in order to contain the crumbs of a cake. After applying this thin crumb boat, refrigerate the cake so that the crumbs become glued to the surface of the cake. That way, they will not interfere when you get ready to do some serious cake decoration.
Tip #3: Apply an Icing Dam to Stop Leaks
It sounds strange, but if you have a cake with layers, there is always the danger of leakage. Leakage refers to the filling of a cake that can spill out from the sides of the cake. Even if you are careful with the amount of the filling that you have applied to the cake, there is always the side that it will leak out. This can often create a bulge-like effect on the side of the cake. Use piped icing in order to stop such leaks by creating a type of icing dam. This easy trick can be used whenever a cake is leaving filling.
Tip #4: Trim and Slice Before You Begin to Decorate
There is an easy way to avoid many potential problems while you are decorating the cake. You can avoid a cake that looks lopsided, or icing that does not apply smoothly, simply by leveling off the top of the cake with a knife. You will want to wait until the cake has cooled fully before you level off the top. You will also want to trim the side of the cake-any dry or too-crusty sections that will not take the icing well.
Tip #5: Freeze Your Cake Before You Begin to Decorate
This is an easy tip that has been used with much success by novices and professional cake decorators alike. Make sure that you wrap the cake completely using several layers of plastic cling wrap. Then, on top of the plastic, you will want to wrap the cake in aluminum foil. This will help keep the cake flavorful and moist. Freezing a cake is an easy way to ensure that you have a good foundation to work with.
Both Ivan Bruno & Josephine Gauttier are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Ivan Bruno has sinced written about articles on various topics from Marketing Tool, Flirting Tips and Wedding Cake. Ready to make a wedding party? Do not forget to choose the best so your guests will remember your perfect wedding at. Ivan Bruno's top article generates over 2900 views. to your Favourites.
Josephine Gauttier has sinced written about articles on various topics from Food And Drink, Cooking Tips and Food And Drink. Josephine Gauttier is the author of the popular eBook "The Art of Cake Decorating". You can find more information about cake decorating at