A Brief Tour of European Wedding Cake Traditions

Sweet treats, often including a very specific type of cake, are a near-universal part of a wedding celebration. We are used to the traditional tall wedding cake in America, and we've posted many modern interpretations. Wedding cakes and their traditions vary widely in other countries.  

At weddings in France and parts of Belgium the croquembouche is served. The name croquembouche derives from the French “croque en bouche” meaning crack in mouth. This is apt as croquembouche is a tall, conical structure of cream-filled pastry buns enveloped in hard sugar. On top of the croquembouche are a set of figurines symbolizing the newlyweds. Similar to a croquembouche are the Icelandic wedding cake known as kransakaka and the Danish kransekage. These are wreath cakes consisting of multiple almond pastry rings of decreasing size placed one atop the other to form a cone of cakes. Each ring cake is decorated with white icing and the whole cake is filled with confectionary. According to Danish tradition the newlyweds should remove the top layer with the number of layers that adhere to it indicating how many children the couple will have.

Read how the idea of a wedding cake came to be, and how that tradition is interpreted in different European countries at FolkloreThursday. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Eric Baker)