Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
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142 In medieval England, small spiced buns were arranged in a tow- ering stack. If the bride and groom were able to kiss over the sticky spire, it presaged a lifetime of pros- perity (it also boded well for fertil- ity). In Yorkshire County, "bride pie" was customary—sometimes it was made with sweetbreads, sometimes mutton; others are said to have "consisted of a large round pie containing a plump hen full of eggs, surrounded by minced meats, fruits, and nuts and embellished with ornate pastry emblems." A ring was traditionally placed in the pie and, much like the tossed bridal bouquet of today, the woman who found it would be next to marry. The 17th century saw the turn- ing of savory pie into sweet cake— the predecessor of today's wedding cake. Fruitcakes, in particular, were emblems of fertility and prosperity, and gradually became the centerpieces for weddings. Also common were separate cakes for grooms—they tended to be dark, heavy, small, not iced, and were often cut into squares, boxed up, and given to guests to take home. DELVING HISTORY of the wedding cake reveals both familiar and lesser-known customs surrounding its ceremonial role in a couple's union. Stretching back to the Roman Empire, for instance, we see the tradition of breaking a "cake loaf"—made of whole wheat flour—over a bride's head as a symbol of male dominance in the marriage, as purported by some; others understand it to have been in the name of good fortune. Another ritual from this century— one held over until recently—was to take a piece of cake home to be placed under an unwed woman's pillow. At the reception, the cake was broken into tiny pieces, which were then passed through the bride's wedding ring—those pieces accompanied guests home, where they were said to dream of their future husbands. Also in Yorkshire County, small bits of bride cake were thrown over the heads of the newly married cou- ple (much like today's rice throw- ing). The cake often contained little charms like a silver coin, a ring, a button, and a thimble. The guest who received the slice containing the coin was assured prosperity, while the ring meant marriage within a year. Forlorn sweethearts found the button, while the thimble meant a destiny of lifelong spinster- hood or bachelorhood. By the 19th century, the term "wedding cake" was prevalent. Icing—a sort of meringue mixture of whisked egg and sugar—first appeared at this time, and was referred to as "bliss." It proved the precursor to "royal icing," which earned its name following Queen Victoria's wedding to Prince Albert in 1840; white icing, which called for the finest (most expensive) refined sugar, graced the Queen's cake. Therefore, a pure white cake was a display of wealth. It has been known as "royal icing" ever since. The now-traditional multitiered wedding cake—a grand affair of flavorful cake layers decorated with royal icing and embellished with sugar flowers and other decora- tive elements—has its origins in the cake made for Prince Leopold's wedding in 1882. A decade later, tiers would be separated by col- umns, and by the beginning of the 20th century, those columns were made of hardened icing. Nowadays, whether classic or contemporary, the wedding cake is the ceremonial centerpiece—a matrimonial crescendo of sorts. The joint cutting of the cake, we know, symbolizes the first undertaking as a married couple, while the gesture of feeding cake to each other is a sign of commitment. And, of course, classic white indicates the wife's "purity" and "virginal attributes"—a notion that came out of Victorian times. Here to share some sentiments about the all-important wedding cake are three of the North Shore's most talented pastry artists: Barbara Smith SILVER CLOUD CAKES Soft-spoken, gentle-natured Bar- bara Smith is in the upper echelons of cake artists. The former comput- er developer and mother of three came to cake making as a means of coping when her mother had Alz- heimer's disease and needed a lot of help. It was an escape—something she found relaxing. Capitalizing on her talent for photographs by Katie Noble (bottom left and bottom right), all others courtesy of Silver Cloud Cakes Silver Cloud Cakes are made in Barbara Smith's historic Manchester home.