Floral Wedding Cakes

What’s not to love about a floral wedding cake? The trend to decorate cakes with flowers, whether real or gum paste, really became all the rage during the 1980s, when Martha Stewart showed us all how wrong we’d been doing weddings up to that point. Gone suddenly were the little bride and groom figurines made of porcelain or plastic that stood proudly atop cakes. Replacing them were mounds and cascades and accents of flowers of all shapes, sizes, and hues. The trend may have died down to some extent; today, we’re as apt to see a bride and groom cake topper – or a pair of birds or bicycles, or anything else the couple might fancy – as flowers. But flowers have not lost favor completely. In fact, florists are still busy preparing floral toppers for cakes that match the bride’s color palette and bouquet. Likewise, bakers are kept busy crafting handmade, sugar or gum paste flowers, or at the very least, custom coloring store bought gum paste creations to offset their beautiful cakes. There are a couple of points to remember when choosing to trim your cake with fresh flowers. First, make sure that the bloom you’d like to use is NOT poisonous. Wouldn’t you hate to send people to the hospital because they ingested a piece of your cake that had ivy on it? And secondly, if at all possible, ask your florist for pesticide-free blooms. Bug killing chemicals = not tasty. And finally, if it’s gum or sugar paste flowers that you’re after, remind guests that, although they are technically edible, it’s probably not very tasty or a good idea. If you want edible decorations, you should probably stick with real or marzipan fruit.