Published Sunday, June 11, 2000
MERCER COUNTY
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Traditional white is out for weddings
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CAKES AS VARIED IN TASTE, STYLE AS COUPLES ARE
Herald News Intern
While wedding cake isn’t typically known for its delicious taste, local pastry makers and caterers are trying to add flavor to the dessert for the June wedding season.
New use of color, flowers and design allow couples to customize their cakes, said Roseanne Lucich, manager of Hermitage Bakery.
One of the biggest trends in wedding cakes is the replacement of plastic bride and groom figurines with fresh flowers or personalized ornaments.
“The topper is really the most important part of the cake because it really reflects the bride and groom,” said Debbie Truchan, owner of Truchan Catering in West Middlesex. “That’s something they’re going to keep all their lives.”
Nine of 10 couples now choose flowers over figurines, said Charles Nelson, owner of Nelson Photography and Floral Boutique in Hermitage. A plastic container or foil allows the flowers to be easily removed so guests don’t need to worry about eating a poisonous petal.
Ms. Truchan said couples often choose specialized ornaments, such as Harley Davidson Motorcycles, for their topper, paying anything from $50 to $300 for one to reflect their personality. One couple enjoyed fishing so much, Ms. Truchan said, that their topper was a fountain they filled with goldfish the night before the wedding.
“It was terrible because the next day a lot of the goldfish died,” Ms. Truchan said. Ms. Lucich talked about one bride who wanted her cake designed with little brightly colored balloons and another who wanted a fishnet design made into her cake.
“Traditional white — that’s gone out,” Ms. Lucich said. Instead, brides are choosing new flavors, like carrot, and picking icing that matches their favorite colors.
Elaborate designs mean the bakery must devote more time in creation. It also may mean a heftier price. A basketweave look to the cake means an added $40 to $50 at Hermitage Bakery. Ms. Truchan said couples should expect to pay $150 or more for their cake.
Different setups also allow couples to customize cakes, Ms. Lucich said. Many brides separate their cake into different stands for a more dramatic look, she said.
Hermitage Bakery cake designer Werner Yullrich recently turned a small wedding cake into a two-tiered work of art by applying lavender icing and white columns.
Tiered cakes, specifically those with two sides, also give better pictures because they fill the camera frame, Nelson said.
Another option is to serve petits fours instead of cutting a large cake. Petits fours are individual square cakes decorated with buttercream and drizzled with fondant. Brides that choose them often request small boxes and present them to guests with the option of taking the cake home, Ms. Lucich said.
Besides deciding what design they’d like, couples also must decide what is more important to them — taste or aesthetics.
Most pastry makers prefer to work with buttercream, a pliable and tasty icing that, unlike whipped cream, won’t spoil or melt in warmer weather.
But Ms. Lucich said some people want fondant icing, which has a smoother appearance. Made of sugar, corn syrup and gelatin, the icing is usually rolled out and draped over the cake. The problem is, “It doesn’t taste good at all,” Ms. Lucich said. “It’s like cutting through bubble gum. You can’t eat it at all.”
The same is true for royale icing, Hermitage Bakery cake designer Gale Miller said. Stores often use it on display cakes, she said, and it becomes so hard that a sandblaster can smooth its appearance.