How to Choose Your Wedding Cake

Most brides have dreamt of their wedding day, imagining the gorgeously decorated and decadent cake they will have displayed on a table at their reception site. Most likely they have seen hundreds of wedding cakes at other weddings, in photos in magazines and on television and in the movies. Most of the cakes advertised are glorious concoctions that have numerous tiers, are dripping with pearls, flowers and other small details. The wedding cake is often the center of attention and something everybody is likely to remember. However, when it comes down to it, and you actually are at the place when you are picking your wedding cake out, besides perhaps an idea in your head or a picture from a magazine you have clipped out, you may really have no clue on how to actually choose your wedding cake.

There are a number of important factors to consider when choosing your wedding cake:

Date and location of your wedding:

The first item to consider is the date of your wedding and where it will be. Some factors to consider are the time of year-if the weather is hot such as in summer time and your wedding reception is going to be outdoors, this can limit you in the types of frostings you decide to select. Butter cream frostings are more likely to drip, ruining your otherwise gorgeous cake.

If your wedding reception is at a hotel or restaurant you may also be limited in whether or not you can even bring a cake in from outside their establishment. Some hotels and restaurants or the caterers you are using may also make wedding cakes, or even dictate where you get your wedding cake from. They may even charge you a fee to bring in a cake from an outside vendor. If you are having your reception at a restaurant, they may not allow you to bring in a cake from anyone but a licensed baker. If you wanted to make your own cake or have a relative bake it for you, this is a question you need to consider when selecting a restaurant, or who will be baking your cake. You can talk to your wedding coordinator at the reception site to see if they have recommendations about nearby bakers. But do remember that you should also talk to friends and relatives who have used bakers they recommend since the reception site may just refer people they know from the business and who exchange perks and referrals. This may not be a reference for the best baker out there.

Also consider how far away the reception site is from the bakers. There is usually a delivery fee. If your wedding reception site is far, your wedding cake costs can be increased considerably. If your baker does not deliver, this could cause a potential problem. You do not want to have to deliver your own cake or rley on someone else to deliver a cake with more than one tier. You have enough stress on your plate than to worry about the cake being destroyed on its way to your reception site. At least if the baker ruins it, they have to replace it with another one!

Another factor to consider with regards to the date of your wedding when choosing your wedding cake is whether or not the baker you desire to make your wedding cake is booked out. Some of the best bakeries can book out 6-8 months or even a year in advance.

Most hotels, restaurants and other wedding reception sites will charge you a fee for each slice of cake cut. You will want to check with them to see how much. You will also want to ask if they have someone on staff who will cut the cake for you and who is trained in cutting wedding cakes as there is a very special way to cut a wedding cake, especially if you have a large reception and just enough cake to go around. Wedding cake slices are typically much smaller than slices of cake you would cut at home or get in a café. The wrong person cutting your cake could mean a disaster made of your cake and not all the guests getting enough.

How many people will be in attendance at your wedding:

Knowing approximately how many people will be at your wedding is an important factor to consider when choosing your wedding cake. A wedding reception with 25 people will require a smaller cake with less tiers (less money) as compared to a wedding reception with 150-200 guests in which you are most likely going to need at least 3 tiers. Remember, the more guests you have, the larger your cake is going to be.

You should give your baker an idea of how many people will be at the reception, if there will be other desserts such as a Venetian hour and if you want to send cake home with the guests. You will need as many slices as you serve if you decide to do this.

A typical slice of wedding cake is about one inch. This is quite small considering the sizes of most cake slices we tend to eat. If you are having a smaller wedding, you can consider having larger slices given to your guests or sending them home with a slice. You can purchase cake slice boxes at a store such as AC Moore or Michaels.

A good rule of thumb for knowing how many slices of cake you will need according to Here Everything's Better:

For 14 servings, a 6" tier

For 25 servings, an 8" tier

For 39 servings, a 10" tier

For 48 servings, a 12" tier

For 77 servings, a 14" tier

For 100 servings, a 16" tier

For 127 servings, an 18" tier

So for a 50 person wedding, a two tiered cake made of a 6" and an 8" should suffice, unless you want larger slices to be cut. For a 250 person wedding, in order for your cake to look even, you will want a smaller tier on top, a medium tier in the middle and the largest tier on the bottom. So you could consider an 18" on the bottom, a 14" in the middle and a 10" on top.

You can also consider purchasing a smaller wedding cake and using a sheet cake to serve guests from. This sheet cake can be kept in the kitchen at the wedding reception and sliced when it is time for the wedding cake. This will decrease your price quite a bit, especially for brides on a budget or for very large weddings.

Flavor/frosting and appearance:

Are you interested more in looks or in the taste of the cake? This is important to think about when choosing your wedding cake. You may want the cake of your dreams, but it may not be the best tasting cake out there. Or, you may want your guests and yourself to really enjoy the taste of the wedding cake. This will affect the type of icing used on the outside of the cake. Fondant icings are gorgeous and the ones usually used in the wedding cake photos you have seen. However, fondant is not the best tasting frosting. You can ask your baker to make the cake you want using a harder white frosting which can be smoothed down to look as near fondant as possible so that you don't have to sacrifice flavor for appearance.

In terms of flavor, there are numerous flavors of cake out there aside from the traditional chocolate or vanilla. Most bakeries offer carrot cake, rum cake, mocha, marble, lemon, orange, coconut, spice, pumpkin, banana, lemon poppyseed, red velvet and even cheesecake as wedding cake flavor options. Cake flavors can have flavored syrups added to them for additional flavor, such as raspberry, rum, lemon and coffee. A neat option for your wedding cake if you are having more than one tier is to have more than one flavor. For example, your husband to be likes vanilla, and you like chocolate. Have one tier vanilla flavored cake and the other chocolate. Some bakeries may also be able to make gluten free or vegan wedding cakes.

Frostings and fillings are other important considerations when choosing your wedding cake. There are a number of different frostings. These definitions should give you an idea of what to expect, but ask your baker for taste samples if you are not sure.

Butter cream: This is the mother of all frostings and the one most typically used. It is sweet, very tasty, easy to make and to use. It does not hold flowers and details as well as fondant unless made very stiff. It can be left out of the refrigerator for a while but needs to be refrigerated if it is very hot because it will start to wilt. This is a very flavorful frosting and can be tinted easily as well as have flavors added to it. It is usually made with butter and/or shortening sugar, and sometimes eggs and milk.

Whipped cream: This type of frosting needs to be refrigerated or it will spoil, and is not the best choice for wedding cakes because it is not as stiff as butter cream and you don't usually use this to decorate with, but some people like this as a type of filling flavored with a flavor of their choice.

Fondant: Many people do not like the way fondant tastes, but you should try it to see if you like it. This frosting is basically an icing that is rolled out and draped over the cake and then cut to give it that smooth, even finish which is truly gorgeous. It is also used to make decorations and various shapes that can be added to the cake. Fondant is made of sugar and water and glucose or cream of tartar to give it that smooth look.

Royal icing: This is similar to white icing and is often used to decorate cookies and cakes. It is harder than butter cream and more brittle when dry. Royal icing is made of powdered sugar and egg whites.

Ganache: A rich fudgey, decadent chocolate frosting that is not very hard and usually used more like an icing. You can have your cake topped with ganache which will give it a chocolate covering and look almost like a chocolate sheen. This may be difficult to use with numerous decorations as it is not as hard as butter cream or fondant. This type of frosting is made with chocolate (vary the types to vary the chocolate intensity of the flavor) and heavy cream.

You can request different fillings for the different tiers in your cake as well. The fillings will go in between the cake layers. Typically each wedding cake tier will have two layers of filling in between the cake layers. Raspberry, lemon, cannoli, chocolate, butter cream, flavored butter creams, white chocolate, cream cheese, strawberry, banana, banana cream, fudge, pudding, cappuccino, Irish Crème, mango, coconut, milk chocolate or caramel.

The best way to pick out the filling is to first decide the type of cake flavor and then select a filling that will complement the flavor. For example you don't want to combine spice cake with Irish Crème or coconut as the flavors may not mingle very well. Decide before hand with your fiancé what flavors you both like, obtain a list from the bakeries you are looking at and have this decided before you go to visit the bakery to choose your wedding cake. There really is no limit to the selections you can make in deciding the flavor of your wedding cake. Many bakeries may even be able to do combinations you request or flavors not specified on their lists. You may even be able to get extras such as fresh fruit, chocolate chips or coconut added to the filling layers-just ask (but do remember every extra thing you add does increase the final cost of your wedding cake).

It is customary that you will pay extra for special fillings, frostings and flavors if you deter from the typical chocolate, vanilla, plain butter cream route.

Decorations:

This is probably one of the most difficult decisions to make when choosing your wedding cake. There are so many styles to choose from and there are so many gorgeous photographs of wedding cakes. It is difficult to choose just one! Consider if your wedding is elaborate or simple. Simpler weddings may not call for large fountains and columns on the wedding cake.

Pearls, drapes, swags, sugar flowers, fondant flowers and decorative accessories, gumpaste flowers and decorations, sanding sugar, nonpareils, colored icings, ribbons, silk or real flowers are all different types of decorations used on wedding cakes.

Most decorations on wedding cakes are made with one of these or in combination of fondant, royal icing, sugar paste, marzipan or butter cream icing. If you want a cake with a ribbon look, you can bring in the color and type of ribbon you want to the baker-you can coordinate your cake with your wedding colors and they will tie onto the bottom tier of each cake.

Fresh flowers can be used on top of the cake, on tiers, as a cascade over one side of the tiers, or at the base of the cake. The possibilities are endless. The best thing you can do is to search the web, look at wedding magazines and bring in your ideas to the baker to see what they can do and how they can work with you. They may be able to help you achieve the look you want by making some small changes such as using icing rather than fondant, which will make the cost of your cake considerably cheaper.

Wedding Toppers:

Another question to consider but which can be forgotten is: Do you want a wedding topper? Wedding toppers are not mandatory and you can elect to forgo one. An alternative option is to have your baker make an array of edible flowers on top of the cake so that it does not look flat.

Wedding toppers can fit the theme of your wedding. If you have a beach theme for example, you may want to have flip flop candles as a cake topper. You can consider a monogrammed cake topper with your new last initial. They can also fit your personality. For example, if you are more serious you probably won't want a wedding topper that depicts the bride dragging the groom, whereas if you love golf, you can find wedding toppers that have a golfing couple.

Wedding cake toppers come in a variety of shapes, sizes and are made of different materials such as porcelain or glass. Whatever cake topper you decide upon, discuss this with your baker because the size and heaviness of your cake topper will affect how the cake is constructed and whether it will even work with your particular cake. Consider also a neat salt and pepper shaker set for a wedding topper or an item of significant personal meaning to you and your fiancé, perhaps a family heirloom or cake topper from your parents' wedding day.

For simple wedding cake toppers, consider fresh or silk flowers or have your baker make an arrangement of edible flowers for a simple topper. You can also use an item that has sentimental value on top of your wedding cake or if you decide to not use a wedding cake topper, but want to have a special wedding topper near the cake, that too is doable. At my wedding, I had the baker make an arrangement of edible butter cream flowers on top of the cake but had my cake table set up with candles, my bouquet, silk flowers sprinkled on the table and a special Royal Daulton wedding cake topper given to me by my grandmother prior to the wedding but that I did not want to get cake on or weigh the cake down with sitting next to the cake.

You also want to think about the set up fees when choosing your wedding cake. Not all bakers will set your cake up for you or put your wedding topper on. Ask the baker you decide to go with what their procedures are. If you decide to use fresh flowers, your florist can put these on the cake (although this will most likely be another fee for you), or you can have the florist show you how to do it and have a friend or family member do this for you if your baker won't.

Extra Fees and Other Things to Consider:

In addition to the set up and delivery fees, there may also be special deposits for columns, plates or extras such as fountains. In most cases, unless your baker uses disposable plates, they will want all of these items back. You will have to make arrangements with the wedding caterer or a trusted friend or family member to be sure to get these back to the baker to get your deposit back.

There are so many details to work out when planning a wedding, and choosing a wedding cake is part of that process. Keep these considerations in mind when selecting your baker and the choosing your wedding cake. In addition to the items to consider already discussed, check with people who have had cakes baked to check on the bakers reputation, reliability and the quality of the cake in both flavor and appearance. Taste a cake made by the bakery to see if you will like what you have selected. If the bakery does not do cake sampling, they will most likely be able to at least make a small cake using the flavors and fillings you selected so you can be sure you like the combinations. Look at photographs of cakes the baker has previously done. This will show you the type of work they are capable of doing. You don't want an inexperienced baker making a cake you want picture perfect and that has hundreds of tiny details.

If you are not using a professional baker, be sure you have someone you really trust make your cake. This is a huge responsibility for the person baking your cake if they are a friend or family member. Be understanding in their limitations and with their time frames. A friend or relative may be willing to bake the cake as a gift or do it for free, or perhaps even just ask you to purchase supplies. Although this can be a considerably less expensive option for you when choosing your wedding cake, it can also create more hassles than it is worth.

Consider also professional home bakers who work out of their home. They will more likely be less expensive than bakeries. Again, check their references (if they don't have any, this is a bad sign), and ask for photos of cakes they have done, as well as a tasting sample. If you are really on a budget, check out your local grocer's bakery department and see if they can make your wedding cake. You can also consider using a sheet cake from a grocery bakery, alternatives to cakes such as cupcakes, cheesecakes, black and white cookies or other cookie or pastry arrangements. If you and your husband to be have a favorite sweet treat, see if you can use it as a wedding cake alternative. This could be a considerably less expensive and more meaningful wedding cake for you.

Finally, when choosing your wedding cake, be sure to get a receipt for what you have ordered, check on the person or bakery a few weeks before your wedding and give them a final person count, review delivery times and pay off the rest of your bill if there is one. It is customary for bakeries to have deposits put down on your cake at the time you order it and to have the bill be paid off a few weeks at least in advance of the wedding. Considering all of these items will help you in choosing your wedding cake and will allow you a good place to start when you do go to visit a bakery. You should feel more prepared and know what to expect when choosing your wedding cake using these suggestions as a guide.