The first wedding cakes were probably made in
ancient Greece. Roman weddings, too, appear to have involved the eating of a wedding cake by the bride and bridegroom. and
Nancy Reagan cutting their wedding cake, 1952
Early modern European wedding cakes During the 16th century to the 17th century, the "bride's pie" was served at most weddings. Different from the modern sweet wedding cake, bride pie is savoury. Bride pie is a pie with pastry crust and filled an assortment of
oysters, lamb testicles, pine kernels, and cocks' combs (from
Robert May's 1685 recipe). For May's recipe, there is a compartment of bride pie which is filled with live birds or a
snake for the guests to pass the time in a wedding when they cut up the pie at the table. Guests were expected to have a piece out of politeness. It was considered very rude and bad luck not to eat the bride's pie. One tradition of bride's pie was to place a glass ring in the middle of the dessert and the maiden who found it would be the next to marry, similar to the modern tradition of catching the
flower bouquet. In the 17th century, two cakes were made: one for the bride and one for the groom. The
groom's cake would fall out of favour as the bride's cake became the main cake for the event. When the two cakes were served together, the groom's cake was typically the darker colored, rich fruit cake and generally much smaller than the bride's cake. The bride's cake was usually a simple
pound cake with white
icing because white was a sign of
virginity and purity. Wedding cake was originally a luxury item, and a sign of celebration and social status (the bigger the cake, the higher the social standing). Wedding cakes in England and early America were traditionally fruit cakes, often tiered and topped with marzipan and icing. Cutting the cake was an important part of the reception. In
medieval England cakes were stacked as high as possible for the bride and groom to kiss over. A successful kiss meant they were guaranteed a prosperous life together. In 1703, Thomas Rich, a baker's apprentice from
Ludgate Hill, fell in love with his employer's daughter and asked her to marry him. He wanted to make an extravagant cake, so he drew on
St Bride's Church, on
Fleet Street in
London for inspiration. Traditionally the bride would place a ring inside the couple's portion of the cake to symbolize acceptance of the proposal. Bride's pie would evolve into the bride's cake. At this point the dessert was no longer in the form of a pie and was sweeter than its predecessor. The bride cake was traditionally a plum or
fruit cake. In the mid-18th century, double icing (covering the cake first with
almond icing and then with white icing) was used on bride cake. The white-iced upper surface of the bride cake was used as a platform on which all sorts of scenes and emblems could be mounted. The decoration was often at least partially three-dimensional and colourful in appearance. However, since some decorations were made with a variety of substances, sometimes the decoration or even parts of wedding cake were inedible. When
Queen Victoria used white icing on her cake it gained a new title:
royal icing. The modern wedding cake as we know it now would originate at the 1882 wedding of
Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany; his wedding cake was the first to actually be completely edible. Pillars between cake tiers did not begin to appear until about 20 years later. The pillars were very poorly made from broomsticks covered in icing. The tiers represented prosperity and were a status symbol because only wealthy families could afford to include them in the cake.
Prince Leopold's wedding cake was created in separate layers with very dense icing. When the icing would harden the tiers could be stacked, a groundbreaking innovation for wedding cakes at the time. Modern wedding cakes still use this method, with an added form of support with
dowels imbedded in the cake to help carry the load, especially of larger cakes. ==Symbolism==