Different countries have different traditions when it comes to wedding cakes. In Scandinavia, ring cakes of ground almond and egg white of increasing size are stacked on top of each other in a kransekake.
If cakes are your thing, Oxford’s Covered Market is well worth a visit- Frances Bissell
In France the celebratory cake is likely to be a croquembouche. This is a light and airy confection of small balls of choux pastry, filled with pastry cream and constructed into a tall cone shape, the balls stuck together with a dab of caramel, more of which is drizzled over the surface.
I cannot count how many times I have seen junior pastry chefs producing these towers in cookery competitions; so often it ends in tears, as the pastry sags and the caramel melts. Nevertheless, when properly done, it has a real wow factor, and makes a change from the ‘marble mausoleum’ of the traditional tiered wedding cake with stiff icing, and heavy fruit cake balanced on pillars.
Of course, the reason for such a solid cake in the first place was that the top tier would be removed, wrapped and stored, and served at the christening of the first born, and the second tier would be cut up and sent to distant relatives.
You cannot do either of those with a prettily decorated sponge cake or a croqembouche, nor with a more recent fashion, which is a tiered arrangement of pastel-coloured or otherwise themed cup-cakes. This makes a very attractive centrepiece for a small informal wedding party, as it does for other celebrations.
In fact, this is a fashion which has come full circle, for in mediaeval England it was the custom for guests to bring small cakes to the wedding, where they would be iced and stuck together to form a tower, over which the bridal couple would kiss and endeavour not to knock over the tower.
Who knows what ill-luck would follow? The custom gradually changed to the cakes being provided by the bride, but the format remained the same until well into the 18th century when the wedding cake or ‘bride cake’ became the egg-rich fruit cake of modern times.
A look at the baking section of the Lakeland website www.lakeland.co.uk will provide you with plenty of inspiration for presentation of your cake or cakes, should you decide to bake your own wedding centrepiece.
And one of the best shops for the cake-maker I have ever come across is to be found in Oxford’s Covered Market. If cakes are your thing, it is well worth a day out should you be visiting London.
From the romantic to the classical, the avant-garde to the frankly humorous, they produce all manner of cakes for special occasions, and I photographed a few on a recent visit (www.the-cakeshop.co.uk).
But the shop also sells every item you could possibly need for baking, sugarcraft and cake decorating, and some you did not even know you could not do without, from icing in many colours, nozzles and icing bags, boards and ribbons, a whole section devoted to cup cakes and sturdy boxes ofevery size for you to send a piece of wedding cake to your cousins in Tasmania.
Sri Lanka also has the custom of sharing the wedding cake, in this case the charmingly-named love cake. Although not a rich fruit cake, its spices, honey and sugar preserve it well enough to send a piece home with all the guests.
From the number of eggs required for the recipe, a dozen in some recipes, seven or 10 in others, it is without doubt a remnant of Ceylon’s Portuguese past. The original recipe would have contained ground almonds, which are replaced today by cashew nuts, one of Sri Lanka’s main crops.
When I was in Colombo as guest chef, I met some delightful cooks and cookery writers who shared their recipes with me, and today’s recipe is based on some of those. If you cannot get the large quantity of cashew nuts, do, by all means, use ground almonds.
Like many cakes made with honey – “bees’ honey” as specified in all the love cake recipes I have studied – or syrup, it improves with keeping, so should be made a few days before required.
Some recipes require pumpkin preserve, but I think it rather better without; I save the preserve for the rich Ceylon Christmas cake.
As one might imagine from the ingredients, this cake also makes a delicious dessert, warm or cold, especially when served with pure vanilla ice-cream, or, even better, with rose-flavoured ice-cream; it would be perfect for the wedding menu.
Love cake
Serves 10
Ingredients
6 eggs, separated
400g soft brown sugar
200g semolina
100g butter, softened but not oiled
175g ground almonds or ground cashew nuts
2 tablespoons rose water
2 tablespoons honey
½ teaspoon each ground cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg
1 teaspoon grated lime or lemon zest
Icing sugar – see recipe
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 150 ° C. Grease and line 2 x 20cm square or round cake tins, or a heart-shaped tin of similar volume.
Put the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and beat until pale and thick. In another bowl mix the semolina and butter and add this to the egg mixture. Beat this well then fold in the ground nuts, rosewater, honey, spices and zest.
Whisk the egg whites to firm peaks then fold them into the cake batter. Spoon the batter into the prepared tins, smooth the surface and bake for about 60 to 90 minutes until the cake is golden brown on top and cooked through.
Note, however that it is a moist cake. Allow the cake to cool in the tin, cut it into squares, dust with icing sugar and arrange nicely on a platter or cake stand.
Cook’s note: if you want a crusty topping, thickly dust the cake with icing sugar before baking. A really pretty wedding centrepiece would be to bake one large love cake, and then a batch of small ones, also heart shaped.
A new, expanded edition of The Scented Kitchen, by Frances Bissell, will be published by Serif in late spring/early summer.