Wedding Cakes in Jane Austen’s World
Though nearly all of Jane Austen’s works end with a wedding, she does not spend much time detailing the weddings or the festivities surrounding them. What did regency wedding cakes look like?
Wedding Cakes
Since weddings were held in the morning (except of course, those by special license which could be held any time at all) the meal eaten afterwards was considered breakfast. “The breakfast was such as best breakfasts then were: some variety of bread, hot rolls, buttered toast, tongue or ham and eggs. The addition of chocolate [drinking chocolate] at one end of the table, and wedding cake in the middle, marked the specialty of the day.” (Austen -Leigh, 1920)
Chances are though, that what you have in mind when I say wedding cake bears little resemblance to what was actually served in the day.
Most likely you’re thinking of something that looks like this: A layered and tiered creation of delicate sponge, filled with something fruity or creamy and covered in delicious, soft, sweet icing. Over all of that would be a lovely work of piping, or perhaps sugar flowers or similar confectionary masterpiece. Sorry to disappoint, but a regency wedding cake bore almost no similarity to that at all.
Not remotely.
To start with, the cake resembled a fruitcake, soaked with liberal amounts of alcohol: wine, brandy or rum. With all the alcohol, wedding cakes kept for a long time. Possibly a very long time. Pieces would be sent home with family and friends, delivered to neighbors and even sent over distances to those who could not be part of the celebrations. Just think for a moment about the mail service back in the day and what would be required for the cake to survive that kind of transport. Sounds appetizing, huh?
Elizabeth Raffald, in The Experienced English Housekeeper, (1786) published the first recipe for an iced bride cake. Taking a good look at the recipes can give us a good idea of how they would have tasted and looked like.
To make a Bride Cake.
TAKE four pounds of fine flour well dried, four pounds of fresh butter, two pounds of loaf sugar, pound and sift fine a quarter of an ounce of mace, the same of nutmegs, to every pound of flour put eight eggs, wash four pounds of currants, pick them well, and dry them before the fire, blanch a pound of sweet almonds, and cut them lengthways very thin, a pound of citron, one pound of candied orange, the same of candied lemon, half a pint of brandy; first work the butter with your hand to a cream, then beat in your sugar a quarter of an hour, beat the whites of your eggs to a very strong froth, mix them with your sugar and butter, beat your yolks half an hour at least, and mix them with your cake, then put in your flour, mace, and nutmeg, keep beating it well till your oven is ready, put in your brandy, and beat your currants and almonds lightly in, tie three sheets of paper round the bottom of your hoop to keep it from running out, rub it well with butter, put in your cake, and lay your sweetmeats in three lays, with cake betwixt every lay, after it is risen and coloured, cover it with paper before your oven is stopped up; it will take three hours baking.
(Yes, it was the style of the day that recipes were written in a single, run on sentence. Crazy-making, isn’t it?)
So we’ve got four pounds of flour and butter, seven pounds total of dried fruits, two pounds of sugar, THIRTY TWO eggs and some spices. Then you need to plan on mixing this thing–beating actually–for a total of an hour. Can we say ‘Oh my aching shoulder?’ (Moments like this make me love my kitchen-aid mixer!)
All of that is going to bake up into a very dense, heavy cake that would look much more like the picture above, from a 1900 cookbook’s bride cake recipe very similar to this one. Layers and tiers would not really be feasible with a cake like this either. It is too heavy to stack up very high. The bottom tier would crush under the weight of those above. Layers wouldn’t work very well either, because cutting a nice smooth horizontal slice with all the fruits and nuts inside doesn’t work well. Nor does baking individual layers when you consider what that would require.
So then, how to make it look like something other than a brown round lump on a cake plate?
Icing.
To make Almond-icing for the Bride Cake.
BEAT the whites of three eggs to a strong froth, beat a pound of Jordan almonds very fine with rose-water, mix your almonds with the eggs lightly together, a pound of common loaf sugar, beat fine, and put in by degrees; when your cake is enough, take it out, and lay your icing on, then put it in to brown.
Although the recipe doesn’t specify how long to beat the eggs, to get a strong froth takes some time. Pounding the almonds fine enough to be suspended in the egg white froth was no small order either. So you’ve got quite the workout in store.
But even when you’ve done all that, you’re still putting it in the oven to brown. So, the cake still remains quite brown.
What to do?
Well, if a family wanted to display wealth, the cake would be covered in refined (white) sugar icing and left very white. Pure white, refined sugar was very expensive and a sign of affluence.
To make Sugar Icing for the Bride Cake.
BEAT two pounds of double refined sugar, with two ounces of fine starch, lift it through a gauze sieve, then beat the whites of five eggs with a knife upon a pewter dish half an hour; beat in your sugar a little at a time, or it will make the eggs fall, and will not be so good a colour, when you have put in all your sugar, beat it half an hour longer, then lay it on your almond icing, and spread it even with a knife; if it be put on as soon as the cake comes out of the oven it will be hard by the time the cake is cold.
Ok, more beating to a froth, and this time for a full hour. This would give you fair stiff peaks, if you did it correctly. This recipe strongly resembles that for modern royal icing. If you’ve never used royal icing, let me suggest that you don’t actually ice a cake with it. It’s great for decorations, like roses. I have some that I made, no joke, 10 years ago–maybe more—and they are still going strong. It is also the stuff you glue together gingerbread houses with. I swear, it is nearly indestructible when it dries. I’m pretty sure it can survive hurricane force winds. I might just build my next house with it.
So I’m just guessing that when the bride cake icing hardened, the cake could definitely survive the post or just about anything else. It might have required a chisel to cut into the cake, but hey, that’s what the servants were for!
At least the cake would no longer be brown, right?
Find References Here!
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Hi, this sounds really interesting. I’m British and the traditional wedding cake here is still fruit cake, though most go for sponge or other alternatives. I was wandering , because how long the cake could potentially survive, do you think they may have followed the tradition of saving part of it for the christening of their first child?
Thanks Kristin
That’s a really good question, Kristen. I will need to do a little research and see if I can find out when and where that tradition started! I sense another research rabbit hole opening up!
My wedding cake in 1974 was a three layer fruit cake with royal icing so was pretty much like a high class recency cake I suppose. I actually prefer fruit cake to sponge cake so that was good.
A friend of my mum made it so I’m not sure if she spent several hours beating it ?
I fear if I had to make one I would definitely need a mixer because 2 minutes beating and that’s me done!!!
Thanks so much for this post Maria, I enjoyed it. ?
Thanks, Glynis! Mixers are wonderful things. I’s really amazing how much beating and mixing in the kitchen will wear you out. Makes me think the head cooks in those days must have had some serious upper body strength!
That is probably why most pictures of cooks from times past is rather burly looking people that I for one do not want to mess with. At all.
My mother made a dark Christmas fruitcake every year and iced it with royal icing over marzipan. I can attest to the icing’s hardness but a good saw edged bread knife will cut through it. My sister in law baked a three tier fruitcake for my niece’s wedding but she used fondant icing. Those cakes are pretty dense, I don’t think that the lower tier would crumble under the weight of the upper tiers. I really prefer a fruitcake to those frothy sweet confections which pass for wedding cakes nowadays.
The trouble with a fruitcake, even a dense on is that all the bits of fruits and nuts create weak points in the structure of the cake. A smaller cake might survive without a problem, but as cakes get larger, they do become disaster prone. I done a fair number of fancy cakes and have my share of successes and disasters.
I really, really want a stand mixer! But I get a lot done with the handheld.
Reading this reminded me of the day before Laura Ingalls’ wedding. She was complaining about how hard it was to whip all the eggs for her cake.
I had forgotten about that bit from Laura Ingalls! Now I’m going to have to reread that! The stand mixer is a very new addition to our kitchen, and I’m still forting out how to get the best use out of it. I tend to reach for the handmixer because that’s what I’m used to.
While I don’t think there is much chance that I’ll bake one of these, I now understand the reason behind fruit cake! Who would have thought that rum and brandy were preservatives? All I remember is my dad grousing that the annual Christmas gift from one of his vendors would be with us for generations to come!
My grandmother used to send home baked fruitcake at Christmas.They would last near forever!
My grandmother also used to make fruitcake for Christmas, along with a variety of cookies, and each of her daughters (my mom has three sisters and a half sister we [the grandkids] didn’t know about at the time) got one for them and their families, except my mom who got two because her birthday is in December so the extra one was a birthday present of sorts. Believe me, they didn’t last long, we ate them rather quickly; if they survived till February then it is because my mom hide some or we were very sick.
One of the best things when visiting my gran was when she would ask us to make tea (only she drank tea though) and then tell us she still has some of her fruitcake left ad then she would cut rather thick slices or tell my mom to cut thich slices. That often was long after our fruitcake was finished.
So I know fruitcake can probably last forever, but why should it. It is much to nice to let it try to last forever.
I would probably have a fruitcake for my wedding cake (when ever I have a wedding) because I still like the more tradisional wedding cakes that are made of fruitcake.
Btw, I live in South Africa, not sure when or how, but it seems fruitcake is considered a more traditional wedding cake that few people seem to prefer nowadays)
I live in the UK. I had a three tier fruit cake made by my mum for my wedding in 1978 and in 2014 I made one for my daughter’s wedding – in both cases we used Mrs Beeton’s Wedding Cake recipe, which I also use to bake Christmas cake most years. In both cases the cakes were professionally iced over the marzipan. If I remember correctly, mine had the tiers supported on specialist cake pillars which come with a base that sits on the lower cake and a top platform on which the upper cake sits (spreading the weight of the upper cake(s). For my daughter’s cake I used a three tier cake stand – a sort of flying tier arrangement, with each tier disconnected from the other ones but still giving the impression of a single three tier cake. My daughter’s best friend got married in May 2019 and also had a three tier fruit cake. I think it’s still extremely common – and very popular – in the UK.
The second tier is, or was, traditionally used to distribute to friends and relatives who were unable to attend the wedding, and in families which christen their children, the custom used to be to keep the top tier cake intact for the celebration following the christening of the first child.
I’m interested in the colossal quantities of eggs – as I recall Mrs B calls for 18 eggs. For a (large) Christmas cake I usually use a third of the quantities. I’m also interested in the cooking time – I’d have said 3 hours was nothing like enough – if the oven is too hot the cake will burn, but if not then the centre of the cake won’t cook in the time. I used to use an Aga and would put the cake in the bottom oven (which is warm rather than hot) and cook for 12 – 16 hours overnight. Wrapping in paper both inside and outside the cake tin is definitely called for. When the cake stops singing it’s cooked.
Reminds me of a Christmas cake. (I’m English) fruitcake, sometimes with alcohol in, covered in marzipan and royal icing? Keeps for ages – I still have half my Christmas cake from this year in my cupboard in a cake tin. Honestly the flexible layer of marzipan and hard shell of royal icing probably could ensure the cake survived postage. Or the apocalypse. Although the one-sentence-recipe is an absolute beast, the number of eggs is what truly impresses me. Call upon your hoard of chickens in the hopes that you can make this. I really appreciate the effort you put into researching all about regency wedding cakes, so thank you.