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Definition: Wedding Cake |
Wedding CakeNoun1. A rich cake with two or more tiers and covered with frosting and decorations; served at a wedding reception. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A wedding cake is the traditional cake served to the guests at a wedding breakfast, after a wedding. It is usually a large cake, multi-layered or tiered, and heavily decorated, often with icing over a layer of marzipan, topped witha small staue of a bride and groom. Other common motifs include doves, gold rings and horseshoes, the latter symbolising good luck. Achieving a dense, strong cake that can support the decorations while remaining edible can be considered the epitomie of the baker's art and skill.Tradition generally requires that the first cut of the cake be performed by bride and groom together, often with a ceremonial knife, or even a sword. An older, archaic tradition had the bride serve all portions to the groom's family, as a symbolic transfer of her household labor from her family to the grooms family.
Tradition may also dictate that the bride and groom feed the first bites of this cake to each other. Again, this may symbolize the new family unit formed and the replacement of the old parent-child union.
Other guests may then partake of the cake, portions may be taken home or shipped to people who missed the festivities.
A portion may be stored, and eaten by the couple at their first wedding anniversary, or at the christening of their first child.
The origins of the tradition of the wedding cake ars hard to determine. Sweets are traditional at many celebrations for most if not all cultures world-wide. Ancient Roman records detail sweets distributed at weddings.
Medieval and Renaissance resources also mention large cakes at weddings. Such cakes may have been fruitcake.
A large cake can take a long time to make, and without modern refrigeration, a heavy fat and sugar frosting may have prevented spoilage by limiting moisture exposure. Another possibility is the use of sugar and fat required satisfying the need for conspicuous consumption for the families involved in the wedding.
Henry VIII of England enacted a law specifying the quantity of sugar a cake may have, possibly to control or tax this prevailing convention.
During World War II, sugar was rationed in the UK, so icing could not be made, and cakes were reduced in size. To overcome cakes were often served inside a box which had been decorated with plaster of Paris, to resemble a larger, traditional cake.
See also
- white wedding
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Wedding cake."
Synonym: Wedding CakeSynonym: bridecake (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Wedding Cake |
| Specialty definitions using "wedding cake": Cakes. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | There's a monster in Barnaby's wedding cake! (Babes in Toyland; writing credit: Glen MacDonough; Paul Zindel) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Wedding cake for Edward Cox and Patricia Nixon in the Grand Hall of the White House. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "wedding cake"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Bulgarian | сватбена торта (bridecake). (various references) | |
Czech | svatební dort. (various references) | |
Greek | γαμήλια τούρτα. (various references) | |
Hungarian | esküvõi torta (bridecake), esküvői torta. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | ウェーバーの法則 (on-deck batter's circle, rag, taking a pitch, wafer, wafers, waist, waist bag, waist nipper, waist pouch, waistcoat, waistline, wait, waiter, waiting circle, waiting game, waiting room, waiting system, waitress, Wales, walk rally, walk through, walkathon, walkie-lookie, walkie-talkie, walking dictionary, walking shoes, Walkman, war cry, war game, ware, -ware, warehouse, warm, warming, warming-up, warm-up, warning lamp, waste ball, water chute, water closet, water hazard, water polo, watercolor, watercooler, waterfall, waterfront, watermelon, waterproof, watertight, wave, wave-front, way, weapon, wear, weather, weathercock, weatherstrip molding, web, Weber, Weber's law, wedding, wedding bell, wedding dress, wedding march, wedding ring, wedding veil, wedeling, wedge heel, wedge sole, weight, weight lifting, weight training, welcome, well-done, west, West Coast, West End, West Point, West Side, West Virginia, western, Western grip, Western league, Western music, Westinghouse, wet, wet core, wet cut, wet suit, worm gear). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ウエディングケーキ . (various references) | |
Manx | soddag vanshey. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | eddingway akecay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | bolo de noiva. (various references) | |
Russian | свадебный пирог (bridecake, wedding-cake). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | svadbeni kolač (bridecake). (various references) | |
Swedish | bröllopstårta. (various references) | |
Turkish | düğün pastası (bridecake). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-d-d-e-e-g-i-k-n-w" | |
-4 letters: candied, decking, deeding, deigned, encaged, incaged, kneaded, wadding, wakened, wedding, weeding, widened, windage. | |
-5 letters: adding, aedine, aweing, caddie, cadged, caking, candid, cawing, ceding, danced, danged, dawing, dawned, deaden, deaned, decade, decane, decide, decked, deewan, deiced, deking, denied, dewing, dinged, dinked, dwined, edenic, encage, gained, gawked, gecked, gnawed, incage, indeed, kedged, kinged, necked. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Anagrams 11. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
