Wedding Wednesday: Cake

Jun 3, 2009 by Katelin

People will tell you that your wedding cake doesn’t really matter.  In your mind you might think the wedding cake doesn’t really matter.  And that is sort of right.

While I wouldn’t spend oodles of money on a pretty cake, I think it should look nice and compliment your tastes.  But I wouldn’t sacrifice taste over looks.  Good tasting wedding cake sticks in your mind.  We have friends who got married in the outer banks who had a key lime flavored cake that was one of the best cakes I have ever eaten let alone wedding cake.

I hate fondant and buttercream.  To me fondant is thick goopy sugar that is gross.  If I am served a cake with fondant I will politely nibble a few bites of the cake and then put it down.  Buttercream to me has too much butter.  Most of the time there is so much fat that the taxture is too greasy for me and loses most of the taste.

Hubby hates coconut.  Really he likes bundt and coffee cakes above all others.

Luckily we both love the taste of the Smith Island Cake.  Maryland’s State Cake.  Never tasted it?  Oooh are you in for a treat.  Smith Island cakes are like a traditional Southern layer cake, except each of its ten layers is baked seperately and not cut from a larger cake.  The traditional cake has chocolate between each layer then it is iced in chocolate icing.  The effect is that the chocolate kind of mixes in a tiny bit with the outside of the layers giving it a really moist taste, but good cake texture.  I think the Sweet Shop in Crisfield Maryland is one of the best places to get one from.  They ship too! They are a small group of ladies from Crisfield, Maryland who formed a business, went online and are now moving to a bigger place soon so people can watch them make the cakes.  They are a great group who even shipped icing to the Greenbrier for me, when the Greenbrier couldn’t get it just right.  Thanks!!!

Normally they look like this.  The Greenbrier, however, made one that looked like this:

The icing was just plain normal icing which saved us a lot of money as fondant is expensive.  Some hydrangea and birds my Aunt carved for me were added to the top.  After seeing many wedding cakes my advice is: go simple.  The intricate cakes are really pretty, but you are going to eat it and really save the moola for other things.

If you haven’t tried a Smith Island Cake I highly recommend it.  While not every place may have the guts to try to attempt  it, if you are in Maryland or close by I bet you can get one.

But my real advice is go with what you like.  Like pie- go for it.  Mad about cookies?  DO IT.  Go with what you like, go with what tastes good, and don’t get all worried about it, and for goodness sakes don’t spend massive amounts of money on it.  And please I beg of you don’t freeze it and eat it on your anniversary- for goodness sakes bake a new cake or make him buy you one.  Personally I recommend ordering the traditional chocolate Smith Island Cake for your anniversary, even if you didn’t have it at the wedding.

Related posts:

1. Wedding Wednesday: Cake Toppers So… since we are only a couple months away from...
2. Wedding Wednesday: Cake Toppers Peeps, as I get ready to attend my seventh wedding...
3. Lavender Pound Cake- an ode to KitchenAid I will admit I was a non-believer in the virtues...
4. Wedding Wednesday: My Experience This Wednesday I wanted to detail my experience with having...
5. Wedding Wednesday- Planning on the go. So this was supposed to publish last Wednesday but for...