The History of Wedding Cakes

 

 

The Romans would make small cakes out of wheat and salt and during the ceremony the groom would eat part of the cake and the rest he would break over the brides head. This would symbolize good fortune and many children. It also shows the breaking of the bride’s virginal state and the dominance of the groom over her.

 The guests would also try and take a piece of the cake for themselves as they believed they would share the good fortune.

The wedding cake was more like bread in medieval England, a custom grew of stacking the small bread buns into a large pile between the bride and groom, if they were able to kiss each other over the top of the pile this showed that a lifetime of prosperity should be expected.

In the 1960’s a French chef came up with the idea of molding the stack together. The cake was incased within frosted lard to keep fresh and free from drying out. The lard was then scraped off just before serving. Later sugar was added to the lard and thus created icing.