If, like many brides, you love chocolate, but aren’t in love with the idea of the chocolate fountain, do not despair. While it seems like there are chocolate fountains like the one below chugging away — most make a fantastically ugly noise — at every wedding nowadays, you can incorporate the good stuff into a limited dessert array without caving.
The lovely folks at Alice’s Tea Cup, a delightful bakery and purveyor of fine afternoon teas located in New York City, suggest you try a chocolate wedding cake. Seriously. Toss the groom’s cake concept out the window because there is truly no reason in the world why the centerpiece confection of your reception should not look (and taste) as scrumptious as this:
It’s described on the site as “Chocolate Leather Boxes.” I imagine the description refers to the fact that each ‘box’ looks rather like those fancy leather desk accessories one can buy at office supply shops. I mean, I’d hate to think of chocolate leather being anything other than a color or an allusion.
Now in my case, if we had had cake which we didn’t because we decided to have fruit tarts instead, the main cake would have been chocolate and the groom’s cake probably would have been a cheesecake.
And this would definitely have me drooling! Are those kumquats? They look so cheerful and bright on the chocolate…mmm…chocolate!
I don’t understand this “groom’s cake” business? Please explain? Why can’t they share the main cake?
I don’t understand this “groom’s cake” business? Please explain? Why can’t they share the main cake?
Groom’s cake is simply a second cake. In times past, they were usually cut into small slices and sent home with guests. Unmarried women would place the piece of cake (in a box!) under their pillows. The idea was that they would then dream of whom they would marry.
Nowadays it’s mostly an excuse to have a second flavor of cake available.
The tradition has Southern roots, Dataceptionist. And even though today’s groom’s cakes are quite often chocolate, they used to be dense fruitcake!
It’s also referenced in at least one Agatha Christie novel (Funerals Are Fatal, where it saves a potential murder victim because the cake was poisoned) and I know it turns up in several earlier works of British literature.
Is it that strange to have a chocolate wedding cake? I didn’t think anything of ordering one (because I don’t like vanilla cake) but my mother seemed to think it was some big, revolutionary thing. Everything looks the same under fondant anyway.
But fondant tastes like old gum….why not go buttercream? 😉
It’s still pretty unusual, Chapstickaddict. Not that there is anything wrong with it. People act all surprised to see a chocolate wedding cake, but, for goodness’ sake, it’s just dessert!
At most of the weddings I’ve attended, fannypie, the fondant had a layer of buttercream underneath. You’re quite right about the flavor of the fondant itself…I usually scrape it off.
As an aside, having a fondant layer over your buttercream can be a great way of protecting the cake during outdoor weddings.
The main argument I hear for fondant is that it looks smooth but any really good baker can replicate the smoothness of fondant with buttercream.
I had a devil’s food cake in 1980, and nobody seemed to think there was anything odd about it! The wedding was in October, and the cake was iced in … something innocuous, but it was decorated all over with hand-tinted harvest fruits in marzipan!
Devil’s food cake …. mmmmmmm……