Wedding Cake Jargon
Booking the most important cake in your life is not easy when there are so many options and designs. Which is made harder if you don’t understand the terminology or wedding cake jargon. Below are some terms you’ll often hear and a brief explanation with example pictures.
Tiers
These are the number of cakes stacked on top of each other. The majority of wedding cakes have more than one tier as you’ll require more portions than a standard party cake. Some wedding cakes have an artificial tier which is used to create a taller cake with more wow factor without increasing the number of portions or the price.
Adding an extra tier can make all the difference:
Layers
These are layers of sponge inside each cake. (Often confused with tiers). Although our standard wedding cakes have three layers of sponge, with a filling in between (e.g. jam and buttercream) we can add more to make them taller. The more layers of sponge you add, the taller the cake becomes.
We have done shorter cakes which look more traditional. This is also a great way to have a larger cake without a huge increased cost.
Wedding Cakes with TWO layers of sponge per tier…
These have THREE layers of sponge per tier….
And finally, these have four layers of sponge layers per tier:
Fruit Cake
Following on from this, it is worth mentioning that fruit cake does not have layers. Fruit is the traditional wedding cake that your Nan and Grandad would have had. We do not offer fruit cake mixed with sponge cakes as it is very out of proportion. They can be paired with sponge cakes, but you would have to have them all as shorter height tiers with two layers of sponge:
Textures
Wedding cakes are a great opportunity to add some style and creativity to your cake to turn it into a piece of edible art. We can create textures using icing and other edible items such as cake lace, and isomalt. You can go for the clean modern look and keep it plain and elegant, or you can add some texture in the form of ruffles or quilting to the fondant to create patterns and illusions. See our texture blog for more details.
Buttercream
Buttercream is soft icing made from butter, sugar and other flavourings (such as vanilla, lemon or chocolate) it goes in between layers of sponge to hold them together. It is also the swirly bit at the top of cupcakes. In order to create a smooth finished cake it is also applied to the outside edge of the cake, underneath the fondant or sugarpaste. It can be used a as full cake covering, on semi-naked or ribbed buttercream cakes.
Sugarpaste
This is a soft white or coloured icing that is used to cover cakes. Sugarpaste can be super smooth or used to create textures as listed above. It is sometimes referred to as fondant, or simply icing. It has a very gentle vanilla flavour. A few couples say “I don’t like fondant” but do not let this put you off a design that you love, only the very outside pieces of cake will have fondant on. Opt for the look of the cake, there will be plenty of non-fondant pieces to go around!
Cake Stand
These are a stand to place the cake on when it is going to be on display. The cake is still on a cake board, the stand is an optional extra. These can be a plinth stand, a tiered stand, a hoop or a pedestal. They give the cake height and grandeur or make an easy way to display cupcakes for your guests to grab and go. You can hire a variety of cake stands from us.
