Wedding cake "to dream on"



Photo from Ang Weddings and Events

 I recently had a comment on my post about Kate and Will's wedding cake. The commenter (smartygirl) mentioned that she's Canadian and traditional wedding cake IS fruitcake. I do agree with her that this tradition is going out of style, although, please, my Canadian readers, I welcome your comments on whether this is still a tradition up north.

By the way, as you can see from the number of posts here, wedding planning and their expenses have taken over my life, so I apologize for the lack of fruitcake posts this summer. I hope to pick up a bit after the wedding, which will happen within the next couple months. However, in other news, some good friends are discussing a holiday fruitcake tasting, which I think is inspired and hilarious, so I will be sure to report back on that.

Back to wedding fruitcake, and a musing on this subject: when I was young, I received a hand-me-down coloring book (yes, I really think it was; I think there were some pages ripped out or pre-colored) about a girl getting married. First, I must comment on the memory of how extremely frustrating it is to try to color wedding dresses in a coloring book. Wedding dresses tend to be white, and that color crayon is boring and, when using it, all the lines (as in "coloring inside of") show through. And yet, coloring the wedding dress, say, purple, was very unsatisfying as well.

In any case, and to get back to something smartygirl mentioned in her comments, there was a page in the wedding coloring book where the bride gave her blushing (just a touch of Peach on the cheeks) bridesmaid a box of cake, "to dream on." Actually, I think it was written like this: "Wedding cake....to dream on!" (Yes, I was impressionable, so the exact punctuation stuck with me)

A couple of things about this: a) the tradition of sending wedding cake home with the guests has, I believe, gone out of favor at weddings lately. I remember this from when I was younger, but honestly, I haven't been to many weddings lately, so please do comment if I'm incorrect. b) I remember even back then thinking, how could you possibly stick wedding cake under your pillow, even if it's in a box, without it getting all smashed? I imagined white cake with white frosting oozing out of the cake box and all over the pillowcase, and I'm sure my mother would not have been pleased with that, even if it meant missing out on a dream of my potential groom.

The fruitcake is the missing link in this puzzle. Being a hardy and traditional wedding cake, it would fit well into a wedding cake box (or as smartygirl mentions, a doily and cellophane), and would stand up to a head laying on it overnight.

So there! Fruitcake is the wedding cake "to dream on." And if I can't find the perfect box, a paper doily and cellophane will work quite nicely--thank you smartygirl!

Review: Holy Transfiguration Skete Poorrock Abbey Cakes

I had mentioned in a previous post that I had purchased the First Gift Box from the Holy Transfiguration Skete Abbey in Michigan. I hadn't looked closely at the description of the gift boxes, but they weren't kidding when they said gift box: the food is actually sent in a nice maple box with "fire-branded" covers. It's a pretty box, though the fire-branding comes out a bit muddy:

Here's a close up of the branded logo:

The cover slides off, revealing two cakes nestled in their individual little cabins:

The box I ordered contained two 24-ounce cakes, the Abbey Cake and the Walnut Ginger cake. Both are liberally doused in liquor; the walnut ginger cake, in brandy, while the Abbey cake is soaked in bourbon. So when you unwrap them, they both look like this:

The cakes are wrapped in two plastic bags to keep in the moist boozy goodness, and it really works--I've had both in my fridge for a couple weeks now and they still are very moist.

Regarding cost, the gift box was $58.00, and with shipping (from the Midwest to the Midwest) it cost me $70. These are not inexpensive cakes, but do keep in mind I got a nice maple box with them. In hindsight I think I should have ordered the Fruitcake sampler, a set of six one-pound cakes, to get the full Transfiguration cake experience, but that one cost $70--uff da! I'm planning for a wedding here!

On to ingredients. Here are the ingredients in the Walnut Ginger cake:

I guess the name of the actual abbey is Poorrock, although on the website they call themselves the Abbey of  Holy Transfiguration Skete. As you can see, pretty simple, wholesome ingredients, and brandy. Here's the Abbey cake ingredients:

While the ginger cake uses both Madeira and brandy, the Abbey cake focuses on my favorite liquor: bourbon.

Here's what the Abbey cake looks like unwrapped:

And finally, a shot of a slice of the Ginger Walnut cake. The proportion of cake to fruit in this cake was similar to that of the Abbey cake:

So, on to the taste. The walnut ginger had the texture and taste of a light tea bread. The ginger was not overbearing but instead gave it a nice bright flavor with a tiny bit of heat. The heat from the brandy cannot be overlooked; unlike a cake where the liquor is baked into the dough, both of these cakes, wrapped in liquor-moistened cheesecloth, have a pronounced alcohol edge to them. If you don't like the heat of alcohol on the tongue, don't get these cakes. Depending how you look at it, the alcohol was either a bit distracting from the taste of the cake, or it added one more element to the flavor.

The Abbey cake is darker due to the molasses in the dough, and had a taste more like a typical fruitcake. The moisture and flavor imparted from the bourbon-soaked cheesecloth made two ingredients that I'm not a huge fan of--walnuts, which I find to be sometimes bitter, and raisins, not my favorite dried fruit--taste quite good. The moisture gave the walnuts a better texture, and the raisins were plump and juicy. Being that there are only raisins in this cake, you don't get the different textures and tastes of a variety of fruit--I think the dried fruit cake they offer might be better for that--but overall this is a very tasty cake.

The hallmarks of these cakes are the honesty of their ingredients and the heavy-handed booziness of them. I'd be interested in trying the dried fruit one I just mentioned. It might--just might--give the Robert Lambert cake a run for its money, and at $40 for 5 pounds, it's a better value.

Next fruitcake: Transfiguration New Skete

I have finally committed to the next fruitcake, which will be from the Transfiguration New Skete Monastery near Traverse City, Michigan. I couldn't decide between the cakes that they offer, so splurged on Gift Box 1, which includes their traditional fruitcake and the Ginger Walnut cake. I'll letcha know what I find out!

Wedding cake is fruitcake...right?

I'm planning my wedding - very exciting! And OF COURSE my wedding cake has to be fruitcake. I mean, how could it be anything else? That is, after all, the traditional wedding cake. A certain fairly well-known couple got married last year and had a fruitcake. Surprising then, that when talking with caterers, they look askance and are vaguely surprised when I say that my wedding cake will be a fruitcake. (Yes, I'll be having a sweet table as well for those people who think fruitcake=poison, which includes the groom-to-be).

Although still traditional(or at least heard of) in England, the fruitcake as wedding cake has gone out of favor, but it wasn't that long ago when it was still the thing. I have in front of me a Good Housekeeping cookbook from 1949, and under "Three Tiered Wedding Cake" it instructs "Make 3 times recipe for Toasted Almond Fruit Cake." The thing we now think of as the wedding cake was referred to on the next page as the "Bride's Cake" and is a white cake. I have also heard the fruitcake referred to as the groom's cake, which would seem to follow if the white cake was the bride's cake.

So it seems that the groom, just like his cake, has been relegated to a back corner of the bride's wedding. In any event, THIS bride is going traditional with a fruitcake. I will definitely be adding more research on this. In the mean time I'll be looking for a sturdy serrated knife to cut that first piece.