To find that special cake for your special day or wedding sounds interesting, right?Taste
the delicious confectionery, yes, it can be done, but don't let it all
in a day or you will ruin your taste buds and cake haven't sick your big
day.In
addition, if you have too much taste test all in one day, all the cakes
taste will meet each other, you can't tell the cake is your favorite.No, unless you have a wide range of notes.Taste tests should make the cake taste like good wine.You must wash panel between each new flavor taste or you don't give it all.
Once
you know your menu, how many guests attend, if it is not just a dessert
reception, you will want to have a cake, praise the taste of your food
rather than against it.Nothing can destroy a great reception faster than having a strange smell from the incredible dessert.You want your guests to leave that they not only get the best meal, (but where did you find a great cake maker?)(also known as a baker).Also, you don't want to add all of the sugar into your system in the day another reason, your hips.Do you still want to be able to access your clothes after all the wine tasting.
I suggest that you mat and writing utensils, so you can take notes.Sometimes
this is unnecessary, because you'll meet or taste the cake you
absolutely hate, but I'll even pay attention to, in case you know
recommended, baker, or specific taste.Why don't you remember you choose cake or baker, will not have a clear reason, or the baker.I know it sounds strange or even impossible.Indeed, our tastes change suddenly even from childhood to a few years, the absolute 10 to 15 years later, we like it or not.Take notes, it will save the day, the memory of you.
There will be descriptions of taste flavorings that
sound so delectable that when you taste it, you still may not believe
how horrible it tastes, or even vice versa. Try all that you can until
you find your favorite. Take water or seltzer to clear your palette
after each tasting, so that your next taste of a different flavor will
not have the lingering taste of the previous confection. Finding your
favorite will be almost instantaneous sometimes and other times it is
a long expedition into the cake world of taste and textures of cake
and frosting.
When you find what do you think what you want.Waiting for a day or two to taste it again.If you've had a good meal plan, this is you can repeat a little, do, eat, then go to baker and cake to try again.Or
if you like it, see if you can take one or two home to try again, meal
or something like that, so you can see if it will work.If it doesn't work, you can search again, unless you want to change something in your dinner.Or just have a dessert.
ust like there are wedding dress trends there are also
wedding cake trends. When I got married, I knew that I wanted my cake
to be on three different pedestals arranged askew, not in a row or on
top of each other, I was bucking the 2005 wedding cake trend. Back
then most of the cakes looked like round hats stacked on top of each
other, complete with the bow. Color was just starting to get
adventurous, back then. Also I knew after tasting several cakes
randomly, that I wanted double chocolate/carob and my friend's
specialty butterscotch rum in the middle. I also, love fondant, so I
knew that I wanted that as my frosting. Although I didn't buck
traditional altogether since my cakes were white with purple ribbon at
the bottom of each layer with flowers to compliment my dress. Because
of my allergy to milk, I knew that the top had to be a white cake and
hopefully something that would keep for a year, or so I thought.
For the year 2011/2012, when I say
wedding cake trends, I am not talking about the color. I think most
wedding couples will go with either the color shadings of their theme
color or maybe this year go with the colors from the United Kingdom's
Royal wedding colors: Silver and blue. Traditionally until the 19th
century all wedding cakes were white, even the decoration on it. White,
to denote purity, much like the dress. No, when I say trends I am
talking about the design and or set up of the cake once it is on the
table. Of late, there have been a lot of boxes, some askew, others in
rigidly shaped edged box shapes and traditional cakes, but seemingly all
stacked somehow one on top of the other. Held together presumably
with straws or poles and a prayer, especially when transporting from
bakery to venue.
Fruit cakes, fillings are out, even though the United Kingdom's
Royal wedding went with a traditional fruit cake, which most Americans
shun religiously at Christmas, so would NEVER be included or thought
perfect for a wedding cake to be shared with your new relatives,
friends, or even your spouse. Prior to the tradition in the United
Kingdom of sweet or fruity cakes, in Medieval times the cake was usually
made of a plain unsweetened bread. Actually probably a truer metaphor
for what the bride was getting into than anything since. The bread
was usually eaten first by the groom, who then broke it over the
bride's head showing his dominance over her (presumably throughout the
rest of their married life.) I can see why that is not practiced
anymore.
The added sweetness, fruits, minced cakes are from the "Bride's Pie"
which became the norm in 19th century England. Sometimes that pie was
even made from mutton, especially if the family was not of the elite
or royal lineage, with wealth to have the sweet meats. By the late
19th century, the bride's pie was out and single tiered plum cakes
were the norm or trend of the day. It was not until much later when
guest lists expanded that cake or wedding cake, earlier called the
"Bride's Cake", that layering started to become trendy. Initially the
layers were just mock-ups, much like the mock or fake cakes of today
in which it was all either hardened sugar or hardened frosting on the
top layers. As you know the use of the fake cake is for pictures now
and the first cut. Nowadays the fake cake after the first cut and
pictures is taken to the kitchen or back room while the cuttings for
the guests are taken from a sheet cake of the same frosting design.
This is both for convenience and to keep the cost of the wedding cake
down to a minimum.
Now, the trend tends to be for a deeper cakes, and we
are back to stacked in the traditional straight stair-step up. The
only break from tradition is the deepness and the dimensions of the
layers are a little bigger to accommodate more guests. Nowadays, the
cake no longer has to be the traditional round layered cake, but can
be a veritable extravaganza of shapes and sizes, but are usually still
stacked one on top of the other. The wedding cake as we know is the
center of the wedding reception, much like the Bride has evolved to be
the center of the entire event. It is said that the dress and the
cake should be chosen with equal care. In the beginning of the dessert
for the wedding it was called Bride 'something', whether it was pie,
cake, or non edibles like the bridesmaids, and bridegroom, all to
denote the day of marriage was to be centered on the bride. It was and
is her day.
In terms of the decor of the cake for 2011 there seems to be a trend
of elaborate decorations for the cake. Such as mimicking the cheap Gothic beach plus size wedding dresses (lace or flowers) or some
elaborate part of the theme of the wedding. I have seen beautiful
crisp white cakes with what look to be butter cream frosting dipped or
sprayed Vanilla wafers that wrap around each layer of the cake. The
sugar flowers are still big, along with butterflies, and now etchings
or drawings of trees and entire forests on the cake. The colors of the
traditional cake is usually white to denote the purity of the bride
and the whole ceremony. Now this year and next, that trend has been
tossed out the window to replicate the brides' wedding colors, or the
couple favorite colors. Much like the theme of the Groom's Cake. The
Groom's Cake was first introduced in early American wedding
ceremonies. It was traditional for the groom's cake to be chocolate
and maybe decorated with the groom's hobbies displayed in sugar
decorations on the cake. Now though through contemporary times the
Groom's cake is not used much other than in the southern states of
America.
Okay, by now, you know, I do research on trivial/little known
traditions, so let me tell you why, supposedly we are to keep the top
of the cake for a year and then eat it with your spouse on your one
year anniversary. You know I had to know. One, because it seems so
random. Two, our cake did not make it through the first six months (My
husband had never heard of that tradition and thought that I'd
forgotten that we had cake in the freezer. Ate, some of it and then
called to remind me that we had cake. Do I hear a collective intake of
shocked breath?) The tradition comes from the 19th century [There
were a lot of things pertaining to cakes happening during that
century. I wonder if Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom loved cake.
Yum.] Anyway, during the 19th century, it was usual and expected that
the bride and groom would invariably have a child 9 months or so after
their marriage, so the top layer of the cake was saved to have at the
Christening. This was before refrigeration, so where were they
keeping it? For nine months and was it still any good? Boggles the mind
doesn't it? Maybe they were filled with liquor to keep or fermented or
fermenting fruit?
Here's the last one I came across, but I am sure there are many
others, do you know how the tiered cake became the tiered cake? No? It
seems guests of a wedding would bring sweet buns to the wedding
feast, pile them as high as possible and the request, probably demand
the new married couple to kiss over the top of the sweet buns. A
French men came along in England and said enough with the piled sweet
buns, let me just make a cake that has tiers.
Actually I have heard and read in the
last year that bakers do not subscribe to the idea of holding onto the
cake for a year, since unless it is a whiskey or rum soaked cake it
will be the worse for wear after a year, even in the freezer. Much
like my husband said, that it was getting dry sitting in the freezer.
The reason our particular cake was getting dry, had nothing to do with
the ability of my baker, it was the ingredients I had requested. I
was trying to give up wheat at the time and requested the top layer to
be made from rice flour. Well, if you know anything about baking or
even rice, you know that rice is one of those foods that absorbs the
liquids around it, much like mushrooms, or potatoes do. Even though
she used mayonnaise to add moisture to this cake, even after just five
short months the rice flour had completely sapped up all the moisture
in the cake itself and was already dry, as my dear husband told me as
he was eating it.
That's another thing if you have special diets, which I did at the
time, make sure that whomever your baker is, that she or he is on your
side as to what you want. Do not go to someone who does not respect
what you want. You are paying for the cake. They may say they are an
artist and they have always done it a certain way, but you are paying
and as an artist, they should be flexible. Artistic ability is a show
of compliance and flexibility to make something beautiful out of
almost anything... or even difficult situations.
s
