Wedding Cake: Don’t Eat It, Throw It!

By Tresa Erickson

Imagine it: a three-tiered chocolate cake decorated with fresh fruit and berries. After hours of taste tests, that’s what you have decided to serve at your wedding. Now imagine your guests picking up pieces and throwing them at you. Absurd? Not in ancient Rome.

In ancient Roman times, bakers made thin wedding cakes from wheat, a grain associated with fertility and prosperity. To bring fertility to the bride, Roman guests crumbled the wheat cakes over the bride’s head. The newly married couple then ate a portion of the crumbs to signify the beginning of their life together. To wish them a lifetime of prosperity, the guests gathered the leftover crumbs and threw them at the couple.

Around 100 B.C., Roman bakers sweetened the cakes and began serving them to the couple as well the guests to eat. Few did, however, as they enjoyed the tradition of throwing cake so much they continued the practice.

Over time, the custom evolved. In Anglo-Saxon times, guests brought baked goods and piled them up as high as they could. The higher the pile, the more prosperous the newly married couple might be. The couple would then attempt to kiss each other over the pile. If they succeeded without knocking anything over, they would be prosperous throughout their life together.

On a visit to London in the 1600’s, a baker from France was invited to a ceremony in which he watched the guests pile up their baked goods. Shocked by the haphazard way the British made the pile and confident it would fall, the baker decided there had to be a better way. He soon turned the pile of baked goods into a layered sensation, and the rich, heavily frosted multi-tiered wedding cake was born. Although the cakes were a bit excessive for their taste at first, English bakers began offering the same types of cakes by the end of the century.

There you have it—a brief history of the wedding cake. From the French’s disdain for the British tradition, the scrumptious multi-tiered wedding cake was born, and it has evolved ever since. From seven layers of lemon chiffon to three tiers of mocha fudge, cakes today come in wide range of flavors, sizes and shapes. You just have to choose. Lucky for you, that could take days of taste testing.

Copy the Story Link