29 April 2011

The recipe for Kate & Will's wedding cake

If anyone should know how to do a proper Christmas cake, or in this case, wedding cake, Fiona Cairns should, as she created the cake for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Here's a link to it on the ABC News website. How I would love this for my own wedding cake. I think in the US, if fruitcakes are EVER used as wedding cakes, they tend to be called the "groom's cake." Anyone care to comment?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Didn't some American President's daughter have a variety of fruitcake (like a "summer fruitcake") for her wedding many years ago? Maybe one of Nixon's daughters?

Anonymous said...

I thought Alton Brown's "Free Range" fruitcake sounded preposterously difficult till I read Kate and Will's recipe!

Anonymous said...

Never heard of a Groom's Cake before, but some quick internet research tells me that it has its roots in the American South and is generally displayed alongside the Wedding (or Bride's) Cake.

The idea seems to be that the Groom's Cake is a gift from the Bride to the Groom and is usually dark (often chocolate or liquor-soaked) and designed with a nod toward what's traditionally considered "masculine" (i.e., no rosettes in sight)

It also seems that the Groom's Cake is also cut up and given to guests in decorative boxes as a 'take-home' gift.

Anonymous said...

I'm from the South, and have seen a lot of Groom's Cakes at weddings (although the tradition seems to be disappearing). When the groom has a favorite cake, that is the cake that is chosen. And that's why it is usually chocolate. In my case it was German Chocolate. And remember the Armadillo-shaped cake in "Steel Magnolias"? It was a Red Velvet (chocolate), and as I recall, Julia Roberts' character's groom's favorite.

Jennifer said...

i live in canada, and when i think "traditional wedding cake," i always think fruitcake. when i was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, people still followed the tradition of sending everyone home with a slice, and i remember being told that if i slept with it under my pillow (wrapped in a doily and cellophane) i would dream of my future husband.

most of people don't do it anymore, but i have been to a wedding as recently as 2002 with fruitcake as a wedding cake. most of the weddings i've attended aren't very traditional though.

no comment on groom's cakes though, i've never been to a wedding where they had one. always thought it was a "tradition" made up by bakers to sell more cakes!

Isabelle said...

Thanks for your comment! I think I'll write a post on that, since I'm planning my wedding now and plan on doing the same (since, frankly, I don't know how many people will actually be eating the cake at my wedding). And you have a point on the grooms cake. here in the US I think it's more of a regional Southern tradition.