h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My choice would be a sponge cake.
But how about a special carrot cake made just for you (and no-one else to get a look in )

Fruitcake!!! Go for the fruitcake you know it makes sense.....

Fruit cake - Theoretically you're supposed to save the top tier of the wedding cake for the baptism of your first child...

Try doing that with a sponge cake

Ignore things like posting or keeping - do you actually *like* fruitcake Whisky? How long does sponge last for in the freezer? Perhaps I will have to get knocked up on the honeymoon! Simply for the purposes of the cake you understand, not at all because I'm clucking all the time

Maybe I won't show this to the fiance though, too many of you seem to like the confounded stuff royal icing and marzipan

Think the best I'm going to get is a number of different tiers, one of which will have to be the evil fruit

There have been lots of takers for so one tier will have to be that, and I am having a carrot one dammit! Maybe a sponge tier will be needed too - I guess non-fruit cakes don't go as far because people will want a proper slice (as opposed to a tiny sliver of fruitcake that they push round the plate and eventually hide under the table decorations).

My fiance said that of everything that is happening on our wedding day the thing he is most looking forward to is the cake so I suppose I ought to let him have *some* say in what type it is

You've gopt to have at least one tier of carrot. Then, you can eat the carrott and all the grandparents and so on cane at fruit cake while responding to the speeches by saying "Eh, What did he say?" very loudly.

"do you actually *like* fruitcake Whisky"

Yup, I'm surrounded by 60 million of them

Although I do like a very rich dark fruit cake (which I actually made for my first wedding - and yes, they keep almost forever) the very best wedding cake I have ever tasted was two years ago - an almond torte.

Basically 50/50 ground almonds and flour - heaven! It was built up into a many-tiered thingy and had a light icing on it. And even after a huge wedding meal it was light enough for people to actually enjoy.

I once had amazing recipes for both fruit cake and almond torte - perhaps I'll be able to find my long-lost recipe book since I am presently re-organizing my flat and my life. I'll let you know if I find it.


az

Oh fruit cake (especially with marzipan and icing) is faaaaabulous! And such a rare treat, being associated with these happy occasions.

I had fruit cake in heart shapes for my second wedding, and kept the top layer for my son's "secular name-giving ceremony".

But I think having different layers is a good compromise, especially since fruit cake seems to attract such vehement "pro" and "anti" feelings.

We had fruitcake (made by my mum, bless her) but cut it and ate it on the sunday relaxed post wedding bit. I couldn't have eaten any cake after the wedding meal.

Are you going to have to dispatch bits in little boxes to absent relatives? Fruitcake travels well.

sprout

We don't care for fruit-cake, and anyway I'm in 'totally-not-traditional' mood for my weeding (I want to irritate as many rellies as possible ), so we decided to get/make a rose-scented mousse/jelly/trifle thingy. Roses are romantic, we would like it very much, and the people who can't come will just have to put up with a photo. Or possibly we're not having fruitcake in case that and the human fruitcakes who will be there reach critical mass and set off a chain reaction of some sort.

Kelli, I am very amused (in a nice way) by your fiance's die-hard traditional attitude! So far, every couple I know getting married, HE's been all 'let's go scuba-diving/have bangers and mash/ turn up at the church in togas' and SHE's been all 'white princessy meringue dress or nothing/ fruitcake/ pageboys in sashes'. It's very refreshing to see some gender role originality going on.

He is *very* conservative. Took me two years to persuade him that civilisation won't crumble around us if he fails to tuck his shirt into his trousers I like the traditional weddingy stuff but prefer it with a modern slant.

I suggested bangers and mash but his horrified face told me everything I needed to know about that! Can't imagine what would happen if I suggested jelly He really sulked about not being able to have the 'Here comes the bride' thing played on an organ, but as there isn't one at our venue and I refused a church ceremony solely in order to have one, he had to just lump it.

az, that almond thing sounds good, but would be waaaaay too unusual for J! It has to at least look like a standard cake even if it is different under the topping.

How do we feel about individual cupcakes?

Cup cakes might make the cake cutting ceremony a bit tricky...

Unless you're binning that as well? Makes for a nice photo.

sprout

We likes cupcakes!

Have the photo, huge knife, tiny cupcake

Did someone mention cake

I like fruit cake but for people unlike me who havent got a galvanised steel skip where their stomach should be why not have a several tierd cake with different cakes on each floor.

Basement obviously fruit for the foundation and steadying because of its mass and density. Next chocolate, then carrot, and then the lightest vanilla sponge at the top.

I'll have a slice of each tar

Well if you are going to be married and have an equal relationship why not compromise and have one layer of fruit cake and another of your choice.That way everyone will be happy.Compromise is a good word.


Incog.

I went to a wedding in Germany recently, in Weilhem (sp?) and the tradition (apparently) was for all the bride's family (who were the locals, the broom being British) to make cakes. So there were 16 single layer cakes, each hand made by different members of the family. There was a chocolate gateau cake, an almond/marzipan ring cake, strawberry cake, cream cake, cheesecake, a cake with a mini-London on top of it, a cake with a mini-Heidelberg on top, and... lots more. I didn't sample them all but I had a bloody good go.

I meant groom, before anyone says anything

Fruit cake, with lots of booze in it to keep it. Marzipan and royal icing - preferably made by your mother-in-law months in advance and iced the week before the wedding. Sorry, Kelli. I've been to two recent weddings where the cakes were untraditional confections of fruit and meringue and general froth. I couldn't eat them (I'm diabetic). I'd be prepared to up the medication for a proper wedding cake, but not for an ordinary desert.

Hmmm. I thought wedding cake has something to do with abundance and fertility - it doesn't bode well for us if the bride hates it! My main problem here is persuading J that we don't have to have a cake that is all fruit, marzipan and royal icing, none of which I can stand. I would be perfectly happy to have different tiers so one of then can be the dreadful stuff, the trick is to get J around to my way of thinking.

To be perfectly honest, I really don't give a stuff if the guests don't like my cake and would have preferred something else (obviously I'd prefer they liked it!) so long as both of us actually like it. We've been to a couple of weddings recently where the cake was all chocolate sponge and that has gone down very well with all the guests (shame I don't like choc cake either), but J thinks it wouldn't be quite right for us because it isn't traditional.

I think he will come round in the end, it sounds as though he can see the logic in me being able to eat a bit of what we choose, and if we are going for different flavours then I may as well try to please everyone!

Have seen cakes covered in white chocolate ganache rather than royal icing - has anyone tried eating one of these?

k