Taking the cake

No longer our mother’s fruitcake with rock hard icing, today’s wedding cakes incorporate the hottest trends.

Contemporary couples want to add a personal touch to their wedding day with cakes that reflect their uniqueness, says Karyn Dunne, owner of Le Gateau in Beaumont. “They want something that really represents them and says something about them as a couple.”

The overall wedding theme is an easy starting place, with vivid colours incorporated into the icing or decorations inspired by the wedding gown. But modern cakes offer a multitude of other options.

Round cakes are still a favourite, but square, heart and octagon shaped cakes offer contemporary looks. As for varieties, couples are choosing sophisticated flavours like lemon cake, tiramisu and cheesecake, with fresh fruit fillings a fashionable choice for spring or summer weddings. Today’s frostings offer subtle, unusual flavours such as kahlua, ginger or mocha.

Mixing things up has become popular. Dunne sees both flavour-mixing, in which each cake layer is a different flavour, and shape-mixing, in which the layers are all different shapes as two of the latest trends.

Colette Freitas owns Ardrossan-based Creative Cakes…by Colette and has been decorating cakes for close to 20 years. “Designs are becoming more sophisticated,” she says. “Some of the latest trends we are seeing locally include off-set tiers stacked to mimic gifts and topsy-turvy tiers which offer a more whimsical design.”

Other fun twists on tradition are fully-decorated mini-cakes baked for each guest, centerpiece cakes for each table or “cupcake trees,” like the ones made by Calgary’s Crave Cookies and Cupcakes. For simple, minimalist themes, cakes topped with fresh flowers are an elegant choice.

Cake designers agree -– when it comes to today’s wedding cakes, the only limit is your imagination.

A full listing of great cake designers and bakers can be found online - just follow this link.