fake wedding cakes

[pianistimo]

there are now styrofoam wedding cakes?!  just heard this on the news today as though it's a really great thing.  just to save money?  good grief.  haven't they got a mother that can bake a cake? 

[ahinton]

there are now styrofoam wedding cakes?!  just heard this on the news today as though it's a really great thing.  just to save money?  good grief.  haven't they got a mother that can bake a cake? 

Not every bride- or bridegroom-to-be necessarily has a living mother, let alone one that can make a wedding cake, but what concerns me more is not so much that but how it is that wedding guests are to be expected to eat styrofoam (we call it polystyrene over here) while drinking champagne (or do such people also advocate the substitution of favoured sparkling water for this?)...

Best,

Alistair

[Bob]

Sounds cheap.  Considering it's a lifetime event, I think real would be best.  Otherwise, it might have a bad omen for things.  In that case... maybe 50% of the cake should be fake. 

[rc]

Does it have a stripper inside?

[Bob]

Yeah, the mother! 

[rc]

 

[quantum]

What about a real cake for rent, just don't eat or you have to pay the additional replacement cost. 

[wishful thinker]

But isn't it a tradion to keep some of the wedding cake?*  If it was polystyrene it would last much better 

* anybody know why?

[pianistimo]

what if you forgot - and ate it 50 years later.  'honey, this tastes funny.'  (they both down the entire thing and die).

[wishful thinker]

That's why you must put plenty of rum in fruitcake 

A while back there was a story in the newspaper about a couple who had kept a tinned chicken in the cupboard for 50 years and ate it on their wedding anniversary 

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/4693520.stm

[pianistimo]

fruitcake?  who would dare serve that at a wedding?  we were going to save a piece of the cake but ended up eating it all because it was good.  an artist friend created one that had real flowers on it.

you could hide ice in the top layer and keep the thing from melting.  we had an outdoor wedding and wow- even by 11:30 it was HOT.

tinned chicken, you say?  hmmm.  i'd try wine.  but chicken?  maybe he wanted out.

[wishful thinker]

fruitcake?  who would dare serve that at a wedding?

In my experience, wedding cake is iced fruitcake......

[elspeth]

The tradition in my part of the world at least is that you have a fruit cake - along the same lines as a Christmas cake recipe - for your wedding, and you keep the bottom tier  to eat at the christening of your first child. Which, if you were feeling keen and hadn't started acquiring children before you got married, could easily only be a few months, which a good fruit cake will easily keep for and still be edible.

Seems to be a waning tradition though, my best friend got married recently and she had a chocolate orange cake... it was lovely, and we had to make sure it all got eaten as sponge cake doesn't keep like fruit cake does...

[pianistimo]

so wishful thinker was serious.  interesting, the various traditions in each country.  would never think about the longevity of fruitcake.  we were bucking tradition because we barely skipped eloping.  my mother was certain i was pregnant.  it was so fun fooling her.  (first child came four years later).

mmm. chocolate orange cake sounds good.

[elspeth]

Serious fruit cake recipes improve with age - my mum always aims to have the Christmas cake made by the start of November, then you put it in an airtight tin and lace it with alcohol every so often, then ice it on Christmas Eve. It takes your head off if you're not prepared for it, but it's a very good cake!

[pianistimo]

easy to light?  you light the cake?  this is getting even more interesting.  but, wouldn't that be a mixed message after a few years of marriage.  'honey, let's flame up the wedding cake.'  may as well add the rings into the blaze. 

seriously, my aunt and i were talking and we'd marry the same guys again.  we both found the exact same things.  they were irresistable but geeky.  the thing is - guys like this are extremely attentive.  we both have a lot of help whenever we need it.  say if we need someone to pick up some groceries or dinner.  also, my husband isn't that critical of stuff that i think others might be.  for instance, if one week the house is a mess - he doesn't say a thing.  he trusts that it will get better.  i love him for his patience.

[elspeth]

Sorry, I'd edited the bit about lighting it out after realising it was the New Year cake we light, not the iced Christmas cake! But yes, a fruit cake that's been marinading in alcohol for some weeks, then you switch the lights off and light the cake as you carry it in to serve it. The alcohol burns off (well, some of it, anyway!) and then you put the lights back on and eat it... then go for a bit of a lie down afterwards, it's not for the faint-hearted!

[rc]

Hearing that our Canadian cakes seem pretty weak.  They're all non-alcoholic!

This is terrible news.