Chocolate has been associated with romance for thousands of years. Ancient Mayans reportedly served their beloved warm chocolate beverage in gold chalices at both bethrothel and wedding ceremonies. In today’s modern weddings, however, I think chocolate is unfortunately overlooked. Sure, sometimes the newlyweds include a layer of chocolate cake as a choice in a multi-tiered extravaganza, but it’s pretty rare to see a deep chocolate brown wedding cake gracing the table. When chocolate iced cakes are incorporated into weddings, it’s often as the groom’s cake. I confess that even though I’m tempted to include a cake like one at our ceremony, I’m afraid it doesn’t really go well with a spring, beachy wedding and sea-inspired colors.
Did you have a chocolate wedding cake (or go to a wedding with a chocolate wedding cake)? Was the cake chocolate inside and out? How did it fit with the rest of the decor?
Photo courtesy of Manassas Cakery
2:13 PM on November 17th, 2008
Here’s a pic of a chocolate wedding cake I did last Oct. I loved it and so did the bride and groom! All the flowers, fruits, leaves, are hand made from sugar.
5:45 PM on November 17th, 2008
Wow – Susan, that cake in the picture is gorgeous!!!! I might marry a man if he showed up with that! And you make a good pint – a lot of times the groom’s cake is chocolate but not the bride’s. Maybe the color is seen as more masculine? Tradition? Who knows? But I like the way you think!!
8:58 PM on November 17th, 2008
When I ordered my wedding cake, I asked the baker if he could do chocolate. He looked at me like I had three heads and said no. I should’ve found another bakery! Oh well, at least the inside was chocolate with chocolate mousse!
5:19 AM on November 18th, 2008
Yup – I have been to one wedding where they had a chocolate cake. I only have a photo of a close up of the icing-flowers, but it gives some idea of the colours. It doesnt have to be a dark deep brown, and the flowers can make it more feminine perhaps?
Here is the photo anyway.
9:04 AM on November 18th, 2008
Okay – what’s this with the groom’s cake? I had never heard of that until my brother’s wedding. Is that a “polite society” thing? Maybe something debutantes agree is necessary?
I sure didn’t have a groom’s cake. Of course, the Durham County, NC courthouse doesn’t allow food of any type, so we didn’t have any cake.
5:31 PM on November 18th, 2008
You know, a groom’s cake might actually be a southern tradition. We’re not having one. We’re having a groom’s candy buffet instead
9:08 AM on November 19th, 2008
I think a candy buffet is a great idea. I have a really nice linen suit that would go well with a candy buffet.
9:15 AM on November 19th, 2008
Okay – here is the perfect groom’s cake.
10:34 AM on November 19th, 2008
Euw. As long as we’re off topic here, do you ever look at the blog called Cake Wrecks? It’s very amusing. When good cakes go bad … http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/
9:58 AM on November 20th, 2008
Talking about groom’s cake, I cant help but think of the one that was in “Steel Magnolias” – the armadillo one!!
10:03 AM on November 20th, 2008
I was thinking about the same thing, Heaven! It makes me laugh every time I think about it.
10:07 AM on November 20th, 2008
We dont have them here in Ireland anyways – just Guinnes!!
1:33 PM on November 24th, 2008
I had a chocolate cake for my wedding. It was supposed to be chocolate with chocolate ganache filling, with chocolate icing then covered in white whipped cream. When my husband got to the bakery to pick it up he called me, upset, because it was just chocolate frosting. (A beautiful glaze of both milk and dark.)
I said, “what’s the problem?”
He said, “It’s not white.”
I said, “But it’s still chocolate! Take it and go!”
And it was fabulous. I didn’t need a white cake. Like relationships, it’s inside that counts.
11:51 AM on November 25th, 2008
Found another nice one here!
3:02 PM on November 25th, 2008
Cybele – I love that story. A lot.
Heaven – That IS a nice one. I’m also thinking of this and this. Actually, a tiered version of this would be nice, too.
Or maybe I should have cupcakes. Argh!
3:10 PM on November 25th, 2008
Seriously – help me think through the cupcakes. Aren’t these fabulous?
I could also have chocolate cupcakes with white icing and the dark and milk chocoate shells.
*sigh*
3:56 PM on November 25th, 2008
Susan, are those seashells? Chocolate cake does not go well with dead critters.
4:26 PM on November 25th, 2008
They are chocolate moulded shells. Lots of the NCA members make them including Guylian.
6:23 AM on November 27th, 2008
Well.. how about a cake like this, but using chocolate cupcakes with chocolate shells on each one?! Then you get the best of everything!!!
9:07 AM on March 6th, 2009
[...] How can it not be good? Go get the instructions and let us know how it turns out. In fact, this looks almost good enough to be a contender for Susan’s chocolate wedding cake. [...]
9:55 AM on April 16th, 2009
[...] in November, I blogged about my interest in a chocolate wedding cake and our readers had lots of great comments – including a couple of suggestions encouraging me to [...]
9:06 AM on April 24th, 2009
[...] you, this was before Susan got engaged. It was before talk of things like the chocolate wedding cake and bridal shower M&Ms. I guess she was still free to flirt with people dressed up as candy. [...]
11:18 AM on May 10th, 2009
We are a small event florist in Napa Valley. We do about 30 weddings a year and it is very rare that we see a chocolate cake, maybe one per year.
10:01 AM on June 16th, 2009
[...] have mentioned before how much I love the Cake Wrecks blog (see the comment section in this post), but I’ve never had a reason to officially pass on any content from that site to Candy Dish [...]