Why be traditional with a cake?

Naked like in the Garden of Eden. It was the perfect baked metaphor of Adam and Eve, bride and groom, though the proprietor of Cakes by Liz was skeptical of constructing an unclad wedding cake. It was traditional in shape and custom – tiered into a pyramid tower – but it was the couple’s request that the cake be left unfrosted.

No fondant or ganache was to cover up its natural state and that’s what concerned Liz Kane. Not because of the seeming lack of humility and humble discretion – a wedding cake in the buff? Surely someone’s aunt would sneer. Liz’s concern was for the cake’s structure. Would it be able to hold up naked? Would it still be standing when the time came for the cutting-of-the-cake photo?

As luck would have it, it did. And it also turned out to be one of Liz’s favorites in her professional baking career. The cake layers were raw and exposed. Buttercream with bits of fresh fruit peeked out from between layers. “It was beautiful,” says Liz. “Flowers and twigs decorated the in-between of the tiers and you could see the strawberries in the filling.” Unfortunately, she never got a photograph of it to show other brides. Paradise, sadly, was lost.

As unique as the Garden of Eden cake was, it hasn’t become the wedding cake fad that was last year’s cupcake rage. Not even close. Nothing has replaced that, yet the fervor appears to have ebbed for wedding cupcakes. Still, who doesn’t love a cupcake? Moreover, how could you love someone who didn’t? But fads are fads and last year is yesterday. Economically, the downside to any wedding cake budget is that “small” plus “complex assemblages” equals “expensive.” Cupcake wedding cakes are a labor of love, and there’s a high cost for all those little loves, all that labor.

Sometimes, it’s not about the budget, high or low. It’s about defining (or redefining) a tradition as your own. Personal experiences characterize some people’s bias against the wedding cake, because all they’ve ever had was parched slices of brick, passed off as dessert. For others, cake is just not their thing. Pies, fruit tarts, cheesecakes, flourless chocolate tortes, chocolate-dipped strawberries, and baby éclairs are snacky alternatives for couples looking for something different to please their guests.

When Josh and Lindsey Scott of Chilmark married six years ago, there was no cake at their wedding. There wasn’t even a stand-in stunt cake for the photo op – that is, newlyweds feeding (or smooshing) it into each other’s mouths. They opted instead for plates of cookies and a coffee buffet. Their decision wasn’t necessarily a financial one, though cookies are considerably less expensive. “We just weren’t drawn to the ritual of cake cutting,” explains Lindsey. “That formality breaks the flow of socializing. We’d been to weddings where it’s like you’re waiting for the cake, then they cut it, and then it’s, ‘Okay, now have fun.’ We wanted to keep the party flowing, and ours did.”

Revelers refueled their dancing shoes on heart-shaped Linzer tortes, Mexican wedding cookies, Chilmark Chocolates truffles, toffee bark, and brownies. With this post-wedding feast, their partiers kept noshing into the wee hours. “When I left the dance floor at 4 a.m., they were still going,” Lindsey says. And that was precisely the reason they went for a non-traditional wedding dessert. They wanted sugar rushes to punctuate their f ête, as opposed to one dry-frosting-flower period.

So what would a pastry chef bake for herself, if given no constraints of wedding day conventionality? For Liz, it’s all about the chocolate chip cookie, her own recipe – a chocolate chunk, baked soft. “That’s my fantasy,” she says. Round cookies stacked up on one another and cemented with chocolate frosting would make up the tiers. “Then it’d be cut and served like a regular cake, with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce of course! And when and if I ever get married, I’ll let you know how it works out.”

So there you go, all you brides and grooms, brides and brides, grooms and grooms: chocolate chip cookies, the new wedding cake. Enjoy!

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