Save Your Tiers for Another Day: The Humble Sheet Cake Becomes a Wedding Star
Sumptuous, time-consuming creations, like those from Toronto’s Crybaby Cakes, can be found on many mood boards.emily michelson/Supplied
Sheet cakes have always been present at weddings, but not front and center: always the bridesmaid, never the bride, if you will.
“You would prepare the layer cake for the show and for cutting, and then the sheet cake would wait in the wings to make sure you could feed the hundreds of guests,” says New York pastry chef Lauren Schofield.
Now they are in the spotlight. Scroll through the corner of social media reserved for wedding inspiration and you’ll see plenty of horizontal cakes instead of vertical ones. It’s a trend bolstered by go-viral bakers such as New York’s From Lucie, Toronto’s Crybaby Cakes and Gallz Provisions, and Philadelphia’s New June, whose sumptuous, time-consuming creations are found on many mood boards .
The wedding cake, as we know it, is historically a multi-tiered affair; Some sources trace its origins to ancient Egypt, while others place its emergence in 18th-century England.
“Some say the layers of the cake had symbolic meanings, such as good fortune, fertility and a happy marriage,” says Dorrin Shahsavari, founder of the popular Tummy Depot bakery in Los Angeles. And tradition dictates that the top part of the wedding cake (the smaller one often crowned with a themed cake) is kept and eaten by the couple on their first anniversary.
A big cake has usually always cost a lot of money. “Presenting a large cake to guests is a way to illustrate or give the illusion of status,” says Pamela Thibodeaux of Deaux Baker in Austin, Texas. It was also believed, Shahsavari adds, that the taller the cake, the more prosperous the person. marriage would be. (A belief that didn’t necessarily hold up. Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries, as well as Liza Minnelli and David Gest, had eight- and 12-tier behemoths, respectively.)
New June’s vintage-style rosette and ruffled sheet cakes have become a staple of many wedding decor, according to Noelle Blizzard of Philadelphia’s New June Bakery.Elizabeth Hasier/Supplied
As for sheet cake, its associations are much more modest: for most people, it’s the dessert purchased at the grocery store for a child’s birthday party. “The first sheet cake I saw was when my uncle took me to Costco,” adds Shahsavari.
And while a tiered cake is a daunting task for the average home cook, part of the appeal of sheet cake is its DIY accessibility. “Most people have the pans they need at home, and the recipes tend to be simple one-bowl baking,” says Noelle Blizzard of New June Bakery in Philadelphia.
It is also economical. “You definitely get a lot more cake for the price than a standard tier cake,” says Julia Gallay of Gallz Provisions, where the smallest layer cake (6″ + 8″) starts at $400 and feeds 35, while a $400 1/2 sheet will feed 50 to 60. And she says sheet cakes are her most popular request. “They are my bread and butter.”
“Although they are considered a more casual, practical and economical choice compared to their large, multi-layered counterparts, to me they are the epitome of a perfect cake,” says Shahsavari.
A growing wave of couples agree. When Philadelphia-based wedding photographer Jason Moody got married last June, the event was small (with just 24 guests) and they wanted a cake that was beautiful but suited the low-key vibe. “Our inspiration for the cake came from From Lucie in New York and their sheet cakes decorated with icing, jams, curds and flowers,” shares Moody.
The leaf style allows for more design experimentation.Elizabeth Hasier/Supplied
For her October wedding at Shangri-La in Toronto, Isabel Lee, wedding planner and founder of Love Lee Celebrations, wanted a cake that honored her design scheme (light and bright with flowers incorporating seasonal fruits) and which didn’t look like a cake. too picky. “I loved that it seemed a little more casual and I also wanted to blow out the candles like you would for a birthday and the sheet cake was perfect for that.”
Brooke Cowitz of Crybaby Cakes created a lemon poppy seed cake sprinkled with flowers and fruit, topped with raspberry jam, pistachio cream and lemon buttercream. To top it all off, Lee received letter-shaped candles from This Candle is Lit that spelled out “MARRIED!”
Sheet cake is another type of flex. Making a classic layer cake is a test of a baker’s skills. “Constructing a well-executed layer cake takes a tremendous amount of time and precision,” says Thibodeaux. Technically, a sheet version is much easier to create, says Schofield. From the baker’s point of view, they are more stable and easier to transport, says Gallay; for guests, they are less intimidating to cut. And Thibodeaux adds that their center of gravity is much more maneuverable than a towering style, so you can use more sponge and fill options.
But the foil style also allows for even more design experimentation. “There’s so much room for creativity,” Lee says. And bakers who are making more and more of them agree. “It’s literally an edible blank canvas,” says Thibodeaux, who recently made a two-tier, three-foot-long wedding cake for a party in Austin, inspired by the Texas hill country landscape (her husband, an artisan wood, made a solid oak board for this).
For Shahsavari, a larger surface area created an opportunity to push the possibilities of icing. She has built up and sideways, airbrushed, and recently used buttercream to imitate the imperfect relief of a mountain peak.
And Blizzard says vintage-style rosettes and ruffled New June sheet cakes have become a staple of many wedding decor: “These longer sheet cakes are now also a centerpiece of the table.”
As weddings continue to break from tradition in many ways — like non-white dresses and solo walks down the aisles, but also more original decor and decor — the sheet cake seems like a fitting evolution. The tada effect is always there when the couples last longer (sometimes very long; Shahsavari has designed cakes that extend the entire length of a table that can accommodate 50 people). Schofield says: “Everyone still wants their wedding cake to be really special, but fewer people are attached to the idea that it has to be tiered. »
One in a regular series of stories. To learn more, visit our Inspired dinner section.
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