Pick the perfect sugary send-up of your wedding style with our sweet suggestions.
Trend #1: Letterpress Patterns
Why should invites have all the fun? A letterpress-style design is a trendy way to show off your gown's ornate embroidery, your invitation's floral design, or even your chosen china pattern. Using baker's tools, or a custom-made rubber stamp, the design is actually impressed onto rolled-out fondant. It works best with detailed designs, adding an elegant dimension.
Trend #2: Believable Colors
Opt for organic, sophisticated, and edible cake colors -- not a Crayola kaleidoscope. Think peachy pink, not Barbie pink; go lime green, not dark green; do robin's egg blue, not bright blue. If you want a bold hit of color, focus on the details and do a monochromatic look in varying shades. For example, your bottom-tiered sugar paste floral accents could appear in a deep eggplant purple. The flowers can move into lighter shades of purple as they wrap around the cake -- leading to the top tier, which would be covered with sweet, pale lavender flowers.
Trend #3: Signature Silhouettes
Reflect your wedding theme in a fresh way by adorning the cake with sophisticated silhouettes. Created with any color fondant, cutouts of your wedding motif, or a bloom from your bouquet could appear on your cake. The archetypal boy and girl silhouette in brown and ivory could work for a modern wedding. Or, bring in a sense of your surroundings, and do starfish silhouettes for a beach wedding or butterflies for a spring wedding -- it's a very translatable trend.
Trend #4: Oversized Flowers
Exaggerated sugar paste flowers are the perfect way to get an elegant look without paying a fortune for a floral-covered cake. The key is contrast: Choose a flower type that is normally small and dainty, such as daisies or stephanotis -- giving sweet and simple a bold new take.
Trend #5: Mixing Shapes
Tiers in contrasting shapes add intrigue to a basic cake. You could top a hexagon-shaped bottom with two rounds. Or, use a different shape for every tier. Let your reception room be your guide. For a ballroom bash, do a tall and traditional square bottom tier and several rounds to top it off. For a casual loft wedding, play with a combo of hexagon, round, and square-shaped tiers.
Photo: Alex Cao
