3) The Grooms Cake: The Grooms cake has always been a gift from the bride to the groom and dates all the way back to the Victorian era. The bride will usually have a cake that represents an aspect of the grooms personality and interests.
The groom’s cake is not a southern tradition, but a British tradition that has been forgotten in England. It now continues to be a part of American wedding tradition.
During the Victorian era, the first groom’s cake was a very heavy and dense fruit cake that eventually became a flour cake, either white or chocolate. The tradition was to cut a piece of the cake and put it in a small box, and then give them to the unmarried women that attended the wedding.The cake was never eaten, but put under the pillow of the single woman giving them the hope that they would find a husband. In the 1890s, a choice of cake had already been established in America. In the 1890s, the groom’s cake was referred to as the “Lady Cake or Plain Bridegroom Cake”. This recipe was published in the “The British Baker” in 1897. In those days the cake was cut by the bridegroom and served with wine to the bridesmaids before going to the church. In England neither practice was met with success, but in the United States, especially in the southern part of the United States, the two cakes did become very popular with the bride’s cake being light and the grooms’ being dark.
From the mid-century the two cakes have been described as follows: the bride’s cake would be on the bottom, and the grooms’ cake would be on the top. Oh my! The bride and groom would cut the cake and then give pieces to each other to eat. It then would be served to the guest. The groom’s would be mounted above the bride’s cake and saved for later to be eaten. Many different customs were used by Southern Americans during that time period, mostly fruit cake, pound cake and chocolate cake were used.
Today, the grooms cake is a gift from the bride and typically will display the grooms interests or passions. It is a great way to express his personality and add a fun touch to the event.
