If you’re after something a little different in the desserts department, consider swapping a traditional cake for something with a little more personality. Mini cakes, dessert bars and sweet creative culinary are all the rage at the moment and it’s easy to see why! These alternatives allow you to get a little more adventurous and creative, the possibilities are endless and they tempt everyone’s sweet tooth! Follow our guide to perfecting your wedding with a cherry on top.
Mini wedding cakes
Mini wedding cakes offer many possibilities:
- Serve them in lieu of a large wedding cake (avoiding the hassle of cutting and plating up).
- Offer them in addition to a main cake that you and your hubby can slice. The mini cakes can be the exact same style but on a tiny scale – cute!
- Give them to your guests as bomboniere.
Some ideas for your miniature wedding cakes:
- Decorate them using the main motif of your wedding cake such as a daisy, pattern or sugar rose.
- Adorn them with colourful ornaments.
- Wrap your baby cakes in a coloured ribbon that matches your wedding dress or compliments your colour scheme.
- Tie them with iced ropes in gold or silver for a shimmering effect.
- Have a tiered miniature cake that replicates your actual wedding cake!
Mini-cakes can be made of fudge giving them a longer shelf life, so go to town and make these mini masterpieces a work of art for your guests to admire during and after the wedding. Mini cake tins make preparing them even easier; you can try your hand at DIY!
Dessert cupcakes
Cute, affordable and practical; dessert cupcakes are taking the stage as the prefect accompaniment to a stand-up reception.
- Dessert cupcakes can be made in any number of different flavours – traditional fruitcake, vanilla, chocolate mud, carrot, jaffa, whatever you prefer or a selection of a few different flavours.
- Arrange them beautifully on a decorated stand that compliments the theme of your reception.
- Place a centrepiece at the top of the stand such as bride and grrom figurines or flowers.
- Your guests may take them at their leisure, cruising past from the dance floor at any time of the night. This also minimizes wastage as they make for devilish midnight snacks!
- If you decide to go with cutesy cupcakes, you might like to consider putting a larger cake on the top tier so that you can still cut the cake with your new husband.
The ‘Cheese’ Cake
The hottest new trend in cakes is to get cheesy! Build a tower of your favourite cheeses or provide a decadent selection of savoury bites surrounded by fresh fruit and flowers. Sogna Ocello of Ocello Cheese Specialists educated us on the ‘all new’ cheese cake. . “At any wedding the cheese cake is a talking point,” says Sogna, “they look amazing. Secondly, most venues have dessert included and this is another course to serve. The cheese will be eaten, unlike traditional wedding cake. At the end of a meal, guests can finish their wine or indulge in some Port or Whiskey.” There is a range of cheeses to choose from, “I always suggest hard cheese – cheddars, percorino, blue cheese, brie, triple cream or goat cheese.” She recommends serving the cheese cake with jams and mustard fruits on a platter per table so that everyone gets an opportunity to try the cheese. The good news is a cheese cake is the same price as a traditional wedding cake and there is no wastage. “Couples can bring the cheese back to the store and we cut it in to 300g portions and heat seal it for long storage purposes.”
Croquembouche
For something totally different, why not have a dessert you have to crack with a hammer before you can eat it? Croquembouche is a traditional French dessert made by stacking profiteroles in a conical shape and sticking them together with delicious toffee or caramel. It’s been part of every sophisticated French event for hundreds of years and can add something extra to your wedding. The individual profiteroles can be stuffed with anything sweet but pastry chefs normally use mascarpone or vanilla crème. The tower is then drizzled with toffee or caramel to hold it all together. The custom is that the bride and groom have to hit it with a hammer or sword – so get cracking!
Sweet Selection!
A brand new trend that is taking the wedding cake industry by storm is the dessert bar. These cute stall-like buffets add charming personality and a beautiful centrepiece to a reception. You can choose to have a theme such as cakes, candy or chocolate, or you can make your theme a colour or style and have a mix of all different confectionary. Some of the sweets that tickle our fancy are teacup crème brûlés, donuts and churros, cake pops, macaroons to go with your colour scheme, cutesy cookies, assorted fudges, mini fruit or cream pies, dipped and decorated marshmallows, round Mexican wedding cakes, lollipops, both loose candy and individually wrapped candies. The main thing to remember with a dessert bar is to choose a theme and make sure you don’t go too over the top. Intentional eclecticism is fine, but make sure there’s a method to your madness or your risk making your dessert bar look disorganised and messy.
