Wedding cake as a tradition
Wedding is a beautiful institution. It is a special day for the bride and the groom. It is when their dream is taking them to the new own world. Every person thinks about their wedding and how makes a special one with perfect costumes to the ring, from reception to the food. Oh Food is the essential component of a perfect wedding. It symbolizes culture, status and many even much more than that.
OK the key thing in this foodie stuff is Wedding cake- a vital part of wedding food. It is a symbol of the special and happy moments, the celebrations and the memories of the same.
A wedding cake is the traditional cakes which are served to the guest after saying I do do dado do dada doo. It is usually served as a wedding breakfast. It is a huge cake with many layers or tiered. It not only looks ummy but should taste great as well ummy too.
Most of these cakes are decorated with lots of icing occasionally over a layer of marzipan or fondant. Sometimes it is topped with a small statue representing the couple. There are many other options available for the topping for instance, doves, gold rings and horseshoes and the latter symbolizing good luck. The best part of these wedding cakes is their decoration. It is decorated heavily and for that the cake has to be a dense, strong which can support the heavy decorations.
It is an art to make such wedding cakes. The bakers can use their own imagination power and skills to prepare for this sweet celebration for the bride and the groom. He may ask the bride and the groom about favorite flavor and other expectations they have and combine it with his skills and prepare a cake for their live.
Everyone have their own traditions and accordingly they
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perform their wedding. Even cutting cake involves tradition. Traditionally speaking, generally the first cut of the cake is to be performed by the bride and the groom together. This is done with a ceremonial knife or sometimes even by sword. In older days, according to the archaic tradition, the bride will serve all portions to the groom's family, as a symbolic transfer of her household labor from her family to the groom's family. Every tradition has its own values and beauty. This tradition is a classic example of to site this statement.
Other tradition which is related to the wedding cake is that the bride and the groom should feed the first bite of the wedding cake to each other. This can be symbolic to the new formed family unit and the replacement of the old parent-child union. Now a day, a new fashion has evolved. The bride and the groom shove the cake on each others faces than eating it.
After the bride and the groom share the wedding cake with each other, other guests may have their share of the cake. Again this will represent that the guests are sharing the couples happiness. The guests can take this cake home or it can be sent to those who missed the function. It is said that if a bridesmaid sleeps with a piece of wedding cake beneath her pillow then she might dream of her future husband.
Sometimes people like to store their wedding cake and eat the same on their first wedding anniversary or at the christening of their first child. The cake may be frozen for this purpose. Formerly the top tier of the cake might consist of fruitcake which could be stored for a great length of time. Though it is quite difficult to store such cake for a long time but remembering the wedding day through wedding cake can be as sweet as the cake.
Sometimes the bride and the groom give suggestions for the cake. Then their own creativity is involved and it can bring more happiness to their life as they share and visualize the same while counting each others opinion and preferences.
The origins of the tradition of the wedding cake go back to medieval times, when every guest at a wedding used to bring a small cake as a result lot of cakes for the bride and the groom. Then the cakes would be placed on the table in levels and layers. There was one more tradition involved in this ceremony. If the bride and groom were able to kiss over the top of the stack then it was treated as a good luck for them and if they fall into the same then "Hey, it is a dinner with a show!" These cake stacks would ultimately merge into one wedding cake and replace into the modern wedding cake.
Sweets are distributed on every happy occasion. In every tradition, sweets are symbolic to the happy occasions. It has its existence in every tradition and every part of the world. Ancient Roman has recorded the details about distributing sweets at the weddings. The book Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain describes the ancient Roman tradition of dropping a wedding cake on the head of the bride. Medieval and Renaissance resources also mention large cakes at weddings. Mostly such cakes are fruitcakes.
A huge cake may take a long time to prepare and it can be done without modern refrigeration also. A heavy fat and sugar frosting may have prevented spoilage by limiting moisture exposure. Another possibility is the use of sugar and fat required satisfying the need for conspicuous consumption for the families involved in the wedding.
The tiered design of the wedding cake which we find all over the world is originated from a well known medieval church in London, England, called St Bride's. They were the one who started making tired cakes for the weddings.
Henry VIII of England enforced a law and specified the quantity of sugar a cake may have. This could have been done to control or tax this prevailing convention.
Sugar was rationed in Great Britain during World War II. That time it was difficult to make icing and cakes were reduced in size. But for this people introduces new method. They often served cake inside a box and decorate the same with which plaster of Paris, to resemble a larger, traditional cake.
A tradition cannot disappear but wares different mask to represent the same tradition. They evolve into new fashion but retain existence of the tradition.