Wedding traditions with the wedding cake

The wedding cake has changed shape many times. It began as bread and a dry, spiced fruit cake and became the iced, tiered centrepiece of British and American weddings. Other countries have their own cakes, and some have no cake at all.

British and American cakes

The Roman custom of breaking barley bread over the bride's head is an ancestor. Medieval guests piled small cakes in a heap, and the couple were said to kiss across the pile. The white iced tiered cake grew in the nineteenth century, and Queen Victoria's cake of 1840 was famous. The top tier was kept for a christening or the first anniversary, and the cutting by the couple is a symbol of their first task together.

Cakes elsewhere

The French croquembouche is a tower of choux buns bound in caramel. The Scandinavian kransekage is an almond ring tower. In Germany the Baumkuchen, a layered cake made on a spit, is served, and in Italy the millefoglie is a layered pastry. In Japan the cake cutting is a Western borrowing, and in the Philippines, Nigeria and India, multi-tier cakes have become standard. In Ireland a fruit cake is still common.