Cake!

woodchuck · 10-04-2021 8:47pm #1

I feel we need a wedding cake thread... I'm trying to be positive in the middle of all the madness :P

With the 5km being lifted, we're finally going to be able to get a tasting box from the lady who will be making our cake. We'll be getting chocolate biscuit cake and have the choice of 4 out of the following 6 cake flavours to try too:

- Raspberry sponge with light white choc + raspberry buttercream
- Lemon drizzle with homemade lemon curd & light vanilla buttercream
- Salted caramel with homemade caramel & light caramel buttercream
- Carrot cake with orange & white choc buttercream
- Red velvet & white choc with option of raspberry jam
- Choc fudge with choc buttercream or vanilla buttercream

Which would you pick

We'll probably opt for 2 tiers with maybe one tier of chocolate biscuit and possibly lemon drizzle cake for the other layer. I'm saying this without having tasted any of them yet though, so I'm trying to keep an open mind. But need to cut out 2 flavours for the tasting. Carrot cake is out, but not sure which other one to cut.

For anyone who has already gotten married, what cake flavours did you pick and why?

What flavours do people generally like or dislike at weddings?

(I know some people don't even bother having a bit of cake at weddings, some couples skip the cake entirely or opt for a cheese tower instead. But I LOVE cake and damn it, I'll be having cake on my wedding day, even if I've to take most of it home myself :P)

jellybear · 10-04-2021 8:51pm

Salted carmel and chocolate fudge!!! Yum!!!

We had rocky road, carrot (without walnuts) and red velvet

We chose these flavours cause we felt they were a nice mix and hoped there would be something to cater to everyone's taste

Loveinapril · 10-04-2021 8:58pm

We didn't have a cake but I do enjoy a lemon drizzle at a wedding because it is light after the big dinner! I don't love chocolate biscuit cake because I think it has been done to death but definitely wouldn't say no to salted caramel anything!

1hnr79jr65 · 10-04-2021 9:00pm

Lemon drizzle with homemade lemon curd & light vanilla buttercream

^^^ This is hands down the winner, super refreshing, tangy and tasty and its what one of the tiers of our wedding cake was. Everyone loved it as the flavor suited well with our meal also.

woodchuck · 10-04-2021 9:06pm

Yeah I was thinking lemon drizzle as a "light" option... and a chocolate layer, because I love chocolate :P

I figure chocolate biscuit cake would be more of a crowd pleaser than chocolate fudge cake though? I'm assuming because it's so dense though that it would need to be the bottom larger layer and there may be too much of it

So there might be something to having a different chocolate layer that can be the smaller top layer.

I actually don't think I've ever had red velvet cake! Does it actually taste like chocolate? I always thought it was just a vanilla sponge died red. But I might reconsider if it's genuinely chocolatey...

confusticated · 10-04-2021 9:08pm

Great thread idea! I'd probably lose the red velvet from the list if it was up to me, but I love carrot cake so might have different tastes.

We're having bottom tier carrot with cream cheese buttercream, middle is lemon and top tier a very tiny (4"!) fruitcake, mostly because my mam loves fruitcake. Considering serving it with the canapés because it often gets ignored later in the night which I hate (I obviously don't ignore it but it's so sad to see plates of it sliced up with nobody interested in cake by that hour!)

1hnr79jr65 · 10-04-2021 9:09pm

If you are going to pair flavors with different tiers, the lemon drizzle works very well with Raspberry sponge with light white choc + raspberry buttercream, this was actually our second tier. (i picked lemon tier, my wife picked raspberry)

Salted caramel with homemade caramel & light caramel buttercream & - Carrot cake with orange & white choc buttercream would also be a good combo

confusticated · 10-04-2021 9:10pm

woodchuck wrote: »

Yeah I was thinking lemon drizzle as a "light" option... and a chocolate layer, because I love chocolate :P

I figure chocolate biscuit cake would be more of a crowd pleaser than chocolate fudge cake though? I'm assuming because it's so dense though that it would need to be the bottom larger layer and there may be too much of it So there might be something to having a different chocolate layer that can be the smaller top layer.

I actually don't think I've ever had red velvet cake! Does it actually taste like chocolate? I always thought it was just a vanilla sponge died red. But I might reconsider if it's genuinely chocolatey...

It's meant to be chocolate but a lot of places now just have it as vanilla dyed red ☹️ I imagine that's the case with your baker if they have an option to include jam with it.

Lesalare · 10-04-2021 9:16pm

I'd not bother with the "Red velvet & white choc with option of raspberry jam".
It's a real American thing and frankly is just a bog standard sponge, dyed red. It's not traditionally got jam in it either.
I've always found it very meh.

As someone who works in food professionally I would recommend these personally:

- Lemon drizzle with homemade lemon curd & light vanilla buttercream
- Salted caramel with homemade caramel & light caramel buttercream
- Carrot cake with orange & white choc buttercream
- Choc fudge with choc buttercream or vanilla buttercream

Not sure I'd do choc biscuit cake as a wedding cake. I do like it myself but I always saw it as sort of a 'kid's birthday' thing.
But if you guys like it, go for it.

Faith · 10-04-2021 11:03pm

I’d go with raspberry, lemon, carrot and red velvet, but the last one would be with a gun to my head. I personally far, far prefer light and fruity cakes to heavy chocolate or caramel flavours, especially after a long day of drinking and eating.

Our wedding cake was a disaster, but we had three layers. I can’t even remember the flavours now! Maybe chocolate biscuit, a lemon layer and something else? Just goes to show how important it was, 5.5 years later

I don’t think we even had a slice until several days after the wedding, when it was stale as bejaysus.

[Deleted User] · 10-04-2021 11:28pm

I love cake!

But I fear I'll be too full/tipsy/scared of IBS flare up to indulge that night. Out of your options woodchuck the caramel is my favourite but it would be too heavy for me as wedding cake. So I'd choose the lemon. I think.

XxMCRxBabyxX · 11-04-2021 12:43am

I will never turn down an excuse to talk about cake!!

We're going for cupcakes so will have a range of salted caramel, lemon and berry vanilla full size as well as some mini chocolate and vanilla. We wanted chocolate but thought it'd be a bit heavy as full size. I wanted as many options as possible!

pooch90 · 11-04-2021 10:42am

We had bottom layer of Mars rice krispie cake, middle lemon sponge and top of red velvet.
Didn't get to taste the red velvet! But the lemon was a big hit. I dont think I'd go for carrot cake tbh, unless you get it as top tier.

woodchuck · 11-04-2021 2:17pm

Thanks a million guys, great to hear everyone's opinions! Any excuse to talk about cake

I think we're going to cut carrot cake and red velvet from the list.

It sounds like lemon drizzle cake is quite popular! I like it myself and agree it's a nice lighter option after a 3 course meal earlier in the day. If it's so popular, maybe we should have it as the larger bottom tier. That would mean that chocolate biscuit cake is out for the top tier and we'd need to consider one of the other flavours. I wonder if chocolate fudge cake can be placed on top of lemon drizzle cake? Maybe it would be too heavy, but they're both just sponge and buttercream basically...

It'll be lovely to do something normal in relation to wedding planning for once anyway! I'll make sure to report back once we've gotten the tasting box

sporina · 11-04-2021 4:01pm

oh best of luck with the wedding planning - I hope it all goes to plan.. my heart goes out to couples who have been adversely affected by the virus in terms of weddings.. 2 of my mates have had to postpone theirs.. one was getting married paddy's day last year.. had people flying in from all over the globe.. nightmare.. anyway.. back to CAKE.

I don't mean to throw a spanner in the works, but I think your missing a good simple cake like a nice madeira with butter cream and strawberry/raspberry jam...

I am only saying this as I know a lot of people just prefer something nice and simple.. and when done well it can be hard to beat..

In any event, its your big day but if you wanna try and please everyone or most, then I would go with a variety.. scrap the choc fudge as you already have the choc biscuit cake.. and scrap perhaps the salted caramel..

I think Red Velvet is nice for a wedding.. kinda conducive to the occasion..

qwerty13 · 12-04-2021 2:40am

The only times I’ve had choc biscuit cake, it was too dry (so crumbs everywhere), and it was just boring. Maybe I’ve had it too many times, but it would be bottom of my list. Like the absolute bottom.

Faith · 12-04-2021 9:03am

qwerty13 wrote: »

The only times I’ve had choc biscuit cake, it was too dry (so crumbs everywhere), and it was just boring. Maybe I’ve had it too many times, but it would be bottom of my list. Like the absolute bottom.

Have to agree, I've never understood why people like it so much

woodchuck · 12-04-2021 9:22am

Oh that's interesting about the biscuit cake! Maybe I've always just been lucky with it, I always find the chocolate very rich and moist to offset any dryness from the biscuits. I was looking on our cake lady's Instagram again over the weekend and a LOT of people seem to choose some variation of chocolate biscuit cake! So I assume it must be a decent version that she makes. Or maybe it just comes down to personal preference.

I'm asking if she can throw in extra things too like marshmallows, maltesesers, twix etc though (have seen she's done that before)... more like a rocky road I guess. A bit childish I know, but might as well go all out if we down down that route :P

I think I'll have to come up with some sort of scoring system for when we sit down to taste everything. Like overall taste, texture, sweetness, moistness etc. We'll probably just go with out gut (literally :P), but want to milk the activity for all it's worth!

Faith · 12-04-2021 10:06am

I think chocolate biscuit cake is often chosen because A) it's dense enough to support lots of weight above it in layers of other cake,

a little goes a long way with serving, and C) it doesn't go stale as fast as baked cakes so you can keep the leftovers for ages.

confusticated · 12-04-2021 10:35am

Yeah I'd agree Faith, it actually seems to have replaced the traditional fruitcake by ticking those three boxes which fruitcake would have done before!

I'm a bit surprised at the dislike for CBC here because I think it's been one tier of the cake at every wedding I've been at for the last few years. Having said that I'm not much of a fan myself, would way prefer spongecake of pretty much any flavour.

Also I wouldn't worry about tiers "going" together because it's unlikely people will have a slice of each tier, more so that there would be a good selection or choice between them. Leaving chocolate out of ours felt a bit weird but leaves it more open then for a chocolate dessert as part of the meal, plus our venue includes petit fours with the tea and coffee so that's more chocolate.

confusticated · 12-04-2021 10:54am

Faith wrote: »

Our wedding cake was a disaster, but we had three layers. I can’t even remember the flavours now! Maybe chocolate biscuit, a lemon layer and something else? Just goes to show how important it was, 5.5 years later I don’t think we even had a slice until several days after the wedding, when it was stale as bejaysus.

Out of nosiness, what was the disaster?

Eireog1 · 12-04-2021 11:04am

Faith wrote: »

I think chocolate biscuit cake is often chosen because A) it's dense enough to support lots of weight above it in layers of other cake, a little goes a long way with serving, and C) it doesn't go stale as fast as baked cakes so you can keep the leftovers for ages.

You will be surprised how much cake is left over so you will want something that holds fresh for a while. We did Chocolate biscuit cake and fruit cake and a lemon sponge. I love Christmas cake as do all my family so it was easy to use it afterwards. I told the hotel to use all the sponge as I knew it wouldn't hold.

We had over 300 at our wedding and still had half the fruit and over have the chocolate biscuit cake left over and it wasn't a massive cake think it was 12 inch 10 inch and 8 inch.

woodchuck · 12-04-2021 11:26am

Slightly off topic, but does leftover sponge cake freeze well? I've frozen things like banana bread, brownies and scones before with no issues. Wondering if any leftover sponge cake could be put in the freezer...

zedhead · 12-04-2021 11:27am

woodchuck wrote: »

Slightly off topic, but does leftover sponge cake freeze well? I've frozen things like banana bread, brownies and scones before with no issues. Wondering if any leftover sponge cake could be put in the freezer...

Yep. You can freeze sponge and butter cream. I am making my own cake and plan on semi freezing the sponge ahead of icing so i have a firmer base to work with. But i have made cakes and frozen them for a week before defrosting a decorating. I have also frozen leftover butter cream and used it again on another cake.

sporina · 12-04-2021 11:29am

v good points about the shelf life of the cake - as not a lot if it will be eaten on the night.. depends on how big the cake is though and how many guests will be at the wedding...

but i would definitely take shelf life into consideration.. ie fruit cake, CBC lasting longer than sponge varieties

I think it also depends on the age profile of your guests.. older folk like fruit cake and sponge and not so much CBC (we had CBC for my Dad's 70th - cut up loads of it and twas mostly wasted).. younger folk will go for CBC, Red velvet, etc.. (not set in stone obv)..

Lemon Drizzle is a winner anyway

You gotta please yourself too OP

sporina · 12-04-2021 11:32am

woodchuck wrote: »

Slightly off topic, but does leftover sponge cake freeze well? I've frozen things like banana bread, brownies and scones before with no issues. Wondering if any leftover sponge cake could be put in the freezer...

definitely - just be sure to wrap in clingfilm and store in tupperware to avoid freezer burn.. I had a fab iced madeira cake etc for my 40th.. used half at the party and froze the rest and used it for another small party weeks later with some family who wer not there on the night.. twas perfect

Faith · 12-04-2021 1:38pm

confusticated wrote: »

Out of nosiness, what was the disaster?

An extended family member had started a cake business, so we asked them to make ours to support them. We were living abroad before the wedding, and I was getting umpteen anxious emails from them - they couldn't get the icing the right shade, etc. We agreed on a lace fondant decoration, at their suggestion, but I had to buy the mould for them. It was clear they were out of their depth, but I had a million things to be sorting so couldn't pay too much attention.

The cake we agreed on was 3 tiers with, I think, white icing and purple fondant sugar lace. When we walked into our room, we saw a plain white cake with some purple ribbon and flowers on top. I genuinely thought the hotel had brought in the wrong cake, but it turned out my relative completely f*cked the decoration up and has texted my mother the night before in a panic, begging for help. My mum finally suggested just putting some flowers on top and being done with it. I can't remember if we did a formal 'cake cutting' thing, but I definitely never even got a slice of the cake until several days later. Apparently it had tasted alright, thankfully.

I later found out this relative had let family members down before whenever they'd been asked to do things, so that would have been helpful to know!

aoife1991 · 12-04-2021 2:02pm

We are getting our neighbour (who is a well known cake maker) to make our cake and the cake tasting was the thing I have most looked forward to since we got engaged! We are having two tiers - one milk chocolate biscuit cake and the second tier salted caramel biscuit cake. YUM!

When we got the cake samples, we both took notes of each one and didn't share our thoughts until the end. That way we didn't influence each other into liking any flavours more than we really did. Enjoy every minutes of it! So far, it's been the only part of wedding planning that I have enjoyed!!

I have to say, I'm surprised at the reaction to CBC on this thread. Every wedding I've been to, it has been extremely popular. I didn't like the sponge samples we got as I though they were a bit too dense and I'm not a big fan of sponge cakes in general.

confusticated · 12-04-2021 2:18pm

Oh god Faith! Not ideal at all but at least it tasted good!

I'm making my own as well and sort of living in fear of potential disasters but I'm well aware of my limits in terms of decoration. We've had a LOT of testers as a result

jellybear · 12-04-2021 4:44pm

confusticated wrote: »

I'm making my own as well and sort of living in fear of potential disasters but I'm well aware of my limits in terms of decoration. We've had a LOT of testers as a result

If you need an independent taste tester, I'll happily volunteer

Completely agree with people re chocolate biscuit cake. I really dislike it...husband loves it so we compromised with rocky road as one of our tiers. At least with that there's a bit more texture and taste. You guys all have me wanting cake now!:P

XxMCRxBabyxX · 12-04-2021 5:14pm

jellybear wrote: »

You guys all have me wanting cake now!:P

I am this close to emailing our baker for a new tester box "just to make sure we're happy with the flavours" because of this thread

Cake!

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