Survey-wedding cakes

[mlou]

The thread on freezing cakes got me curious...I had never heard of this "tradition" about the top layer of a wedding cake being eaten on your 1st anniversary but we did it at my mother's insistance http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif How many people did this? It was almost better than on our wedding day!

[Abby]

Absolutely! Doesn't everyone freeze the top layer of the cake so they can eat it on their first anniversary?

[JillH]

Ours is in the freezer right now, waiting. Less than six months to go!

We had loads of cake leftover after our wedding so my mom took it all (including the top tier) and froze it. We went to my parents a month later and had it for dessert one night. It was still really good after a month in the freezer.

[This message has been edited by JillH (edited 04-03-2001).]

[sneezles]

mlou
Your question reminded me about what happened to my top layer. My DH and I got married and moved to Singapore, immdiately following the wedding. So I gave my mother the top layer to put in her freezer. We came home for vacation almost a year later and I asked her for it to take bake with me. She had eaten it http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/biggrin.gif , figuring we wouldn't be back or maybe would have forgotten about it!

[goldilocks]

i have mine in my freezer, less than 2 months to go...can't believe it has almost been a year!

[aggie94]

I know of the tradition, but have heard only horror stories about how disgusting the cake tastes after a year in the freezer. So we'll have the bakery make us a little one, the size of our top layer, fresh on our one year anniversary in August.

[Gail]

We did it, but to be perfectly honest, I've forgotten whether it was good or not! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[Luv to Cook]

Ours is in the freezer now, also. Our anniversary is at the end of the month. This brings up another topic of how time flies when your having fun! I cannot believe we have been married for a year already!

[CLCH]

My husband and I will have been married 3 years in August. We saved the top layer in my parents' freezer and ate a little bit of it on our first anniversary. It tasted fine, but it was still a little frozen and the idea of year-old cake made me not want to eat a whole lot of it.

[Mousie29]

Congrats to all the one-years! How fun. We have 16 months.

Ours was tasty; it was a pound cake. After our anniversary, I ate the whole thing over time. It was fun since we really didn't eat it that day.

[Chefmom]

I think that everyone I have ever done a cake for froze the top layer. Although, if you are having a fancy filling that is perishable I would have the decorator/chef make the top layer plain with either just a jam filling and buttercream. Plus, how you wrap it will help with the flavor.

First, place in the box (I always give one to the family without them having to ask) then wrap the box in plastic at least two times and then wrap securely in Heavy Duty foil and freeze in the long term section of your freezer. That mean the place least affected by opening and closing. Usually the bottom on the hinge side of your freezer.

When you are ready to eat, place the cake WITHOUT UNWRAPPING into the refrigerator for 24 hours to defrost. If you would like to eat it at room temperature, unwrap and set out for 4 hours or so to warm up. I have only heard wonderful things about my cake after a year.

I did have a bride tell me that she couldn't make it the year, she remembered how good the cake was at the reception that all she could think of was cake when she was in the freezer. She unwrapped it and cut off a slice after about 2 months, then a month later she did the same. Well, by the time the anniversary came around she had eaten the entire cake and her husband was SOOO mad because he had been looking forward to the cake, but he had more willpower.

Needless to say, he called me one day and I happily baked them a fresh cake for the anniversary.

Enjoy!!
Tami

[kwormann]

We saved ours...wrapped it really well, it was a bit dry, but tradition.....

Kim

[hka]

We did save our cake for a year but ended up not eating it. I too, was a little grossed out, about eating a cake that had been frozen for a year. I wish I had known about the wonderful wrapping method Tami mentioned!! I probably would have eaten it then. Oh well, it's been almost 8 years now. No sense in being upset about it!! Tee hee http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/biggrin.gif.

[Jodi]

I am getting married this Saturday, and we definitely plan to freeze the top layer for our anniversary. I've heard that it gets dry, but we're going to do it anyway!

[woodsl]

Our wedding cake had 3 layers; the bottom and the top layer were Italian Cream Cake. We did freeze the top intending to save it for our first year anniversary, but we ate it on our 2 week anniversary when we got back from the honeymoon. It was delicious!!

[mandarin2j]

We decided we would serve our's at the wedding and have the bakery make a duplicate top for our first anniversary. We were living in an apartment with a crummy freezer (You know the kind? Someone could ski on all the frost it produces in a month, but ice cream turns to mush!) and figured saving the cake wouldn't be worth it. Lots of bakeries keep your order on hand for just such occasions. I think they'll get our return business for our second anniversary, too!

-Amanda

[Emdg]

We were supposed to do it, but the cake was sooooo good. They ate the whole thing! Not a crumb left! The Baker was going to make a little replica, but he became a jeweler instead. DH got me a gorgeous bracelet for my birthday recently from him...but thats another story.

[Vanessa]

We did and mom actually saved the piece that was wheat free and soaked in brandy. It survived hurricane (in an Island) and a yearin the freezer and yes it was good.

[JHolcomb]

Who came up with this @#$% tradition anyway? I took the top layer to make mom happy, but the thing was just taking up valuable real estate in an already too small freezer. So I tossed the darn thing about 2 months ago when I couldn't take it anymore. I'm not super sentimental about that kind of stuff, especially if it gets in the way of my being organized and efficiant. We're having the pastry chef that made ours make us a duplicate for the anniversary. Sorry to rant, but I hate stuff like that.

[Jewel]

Boy did I want to save and freeze...I live in Seattle, and my wedding was held in my husband's hometown of Pittsburgh, PA. We were leaving on our honeymoon directly from PA, so my MIL put it in HER freezer, and there was just no way to send it to us! We really missed that tradition...so DO it! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/biggrin.gif

[Grace]

Our wedding was small, and we didn't go all out on much except for a few key things. The cake(s) were one of them. I had a German pastry chef make us a HUGE heart shaped Raspberry Marzipan Torte, plus we had a Sacher Torte, a Strawberry Roulade, and a Linzer Torte (no big tiered "wedding" cake for us!). Someone was kind enough to put a piece of each on the side for us to save for our anniversary. It was a good thing they did, all the cakes were completely gone. We wrapped them up really, really well, and ate them on our first anniversary, and they were WONDERFUL! My husband and I reminisce about our wedding often. It was a wonderful, wonderful day, and it meant so very much to us. Neither of us have ever been happier. We loved having the same cake on our anniversary, and "relived" a little of that happy, happy day. I like the tradition.

[BosunsWife]

We saved ours, but due to the fact that nine months after we got married we got orders transferring us from Washington State to NYC, and our cake layer was in my parents freezer in WA, we ate ours a little bit early. We had our top layer made out of carrot cake so I think it actually held up pretty well.

[laughsandlaughs]

Not only did we eat our cake on our anniversary (the top layer was white cake with lemon filling and buttercream icing) but found it so delicious a year later that we kept it in the fridge and ate the rest of it in the week following! And this cake stayed in my mom's freezer for the first year and then made a cross country trip in our car from NC to Dallas, TX in a cooler and dry ice!! It meant a lot to us to have it on our anniversary. BTW, my cake was wrapped exactly as Tami recommended, which may have helped it stay so delicious. B-)

[emilycat]

Jodi,

I hope your wedding is beautiful; aren't you so excited?

I love reading all these stories; I've never heard of the tradition before (gasp!), but it sounds like so much fun! Maybe I could have a pretend wedding, with a pretend cake.... nah, I think I'll wait http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[MrsReber]

We had our top layer. It was in the fridge. And we came back from our honeymoon and I ate it. No willpower. The icing was so very good! It was a simple white cake with raspberry filling and buttercream frosting. It was really good, though. I couldn't get it off my mind since it was there all the time, just looking at me, saying "come on, you know you want me!". What's a girl to do?

Also, the thought of eating a cake that has sat in the freezer for a year really grossed me out. Why waste it? One year anniversary, one week anniversary, what's the difference?

[hlao23]

We froze out top layer. Don't think we wrapped it well though. Definitely dry and. . . blech!!! We had a bite, took a picture and threw the rest of the cake away.

[mb]

our 1 year anniversary was last month, and we decided to eat the cake. my DH thought it would be gross after a year, but i didn't really care too much! the cake was so delicious at the wedding, i couldn't wait to eat it again...it was wrapped tightly in my mother's freezer for a year, so it wasn't tempting us on a daily basis! we had a white cake with a chocolate mousse-type filling - it was still delicious after a year. the only thing that didn't keep so well was the frosting (i don't even remember if it was buttercream or what!) - it just tasted kinda grainy. so we ended up just eating the cake out from the middle!

it is kind of a weird tradition, but it was still fun. the whole entire anniversary day, we were just like 'i can't believe it's been a year - it seems like just yesterday!!!' http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

p.s. congrats to all you other 'newlyweds' out there with upcoming 1 year anniversaries!

[Danielle]

Oh, I just love weddings! We'll be celebrating our one year anniversary at the end of May, and my friend is getting married on the same day we got married, so it'll be a neat way to celebrate.

We didn't plan on freezing our top layer for our one year. Even if we did, it didn't matter, because our entire cake was eaten on our wedding day. I was hoping to at least have the top layer for our gift opening the next day, but sigh, it didn't happen. I'm actually kind of bitter about it because our baker made plenty of cake, but I don't think the staff at our wedding reception knew how to cut cake. The first people to be served had humungous slices, and the last ones had little puny ones. I've heard that cakes with rolled fondant frosting freeze well because the thick frosting helps preserve the cake and keeps it moist.

I plan on making a flourless chocolate cake with coffee liqueor for our one year anniversary. We both love chocolate, so it'll be a great way to celebrate. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[lorilei]

We did observe this tradition... and it was wonderful. Our cake was a yellow butter cake with mocha/raspberry filling and off-white buttercream frosting. It froze well, and tasted wonderful (even after a year). We invited our best man, maid of honor and both sets of parents over for a celebration -- and ate the cake together, sharing memories and laughing about how well the cake kept http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[lorilei]

ayiyi...

[This message has been edited by lorilei (edited 04-04-2001).]

[SusanD]

Boy, all these newlyweds! I feel so old! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/biggrin.gif

My parents kept ours for awhile and then brought it to us when they came for a visit. We stuck it in the freezer and got it out on our first anniversary, only to discover a huge chunk missing. I called my mom and she confessed that she had eaten a piece for breakfast the day after my wedding! Fortunately there was still enough left for us to enjoy...a little on the dry side but still good.

Jodi...good luck to you and have FUN! I'm amazed that you're composed enough to be chatting on the BB, the week before my wedding I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

[KathrynY]

We saved our cake top, and ate it on our first anniversary while watching the videotape of the ceremony. I don't think we preserved it well enough, as it was dry and tasted like freezer, but it was a fun tradition.

Aggie (and others), what a nice idea to have a fresh cake made for your anniversary. We'll be celebrating 12 years this summer - I think I'll try that.

Jodi - congratulations! Enjoy your day! Hope you don't mind if I pass along an idea... My mom was so thoughtful and had the caterers prepare a box of food from the reception for us to sample later, since we were too nervous, excited and busy talking to eat anything at the time. We snacked on the goodies that evening while unwrapping wedding gifts. I would have starved without it! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[BarbaraL]

My mom's neighbor kept the top layer of our cake for us, since she had one of those huge freezers in her basement. We each tried a bite on our anniversary -- yech! The icing was okay, but the cake was disgusting! So we followed the tradition, but what a waste of cake! Maybe the posted wrapping method would help.

[LGBurns]

My sister made our cake--it was chocolate with chocolate ganache filling and buttercream frosting (absolutely fabulously delicious!). Our anniversary is in two months and our top layer is sitting in our basement freezer (which doesn't get as much open/close action as the freezer in our kitchen). We actually weren't going to save the top layer, but my sister made way more than our guests could eat (we only had about 60 people at our wedding), so we had tons of cake left over. We had a morning wedding so that's probably another reason there was lots of cake left. Not only have we saved our top layer, but we were eating delicious chocolate cake for weeks after our wedding. I think that cut down on the temptation to eat the one sitting in the freezer. Plus, it's downstairs so I don't see it everyday. Just wanted to add that I don't think this can be a very old tradition. Freezers are a pretty new invention--I doubt the majority of people had freezers in their house before the 1920s.

[Julia1Pin]

This is perfect timing. Getting married 4/28/01, so I will use Tami's method to freeze the cake. Now I can look forward to YUMMY cake. Thanks.

[AndreaU]

We served our cake as dessert at the reception and packed up the rest for guests to take home. It was just too good to let it sit in a freezer! Besides, all 4 of my husband's siblings froze the cake and either forgot about it for a couple of years or said it lost something in the freezing process (not much flavor left). We didn't do too much of the "traditional" stuff anyway for our wedding- we enjoyed it too much (along with the cake)!

[Nanci]

I am getting married June 16th and we'll have to try Tammi's freezer tips. We haven't picked out a cake yet but all the cake descriptions provided lot of ideas -- and also have made me hungry for sweets!

It's fun to hear about so many newlyweds and happily married couples!

[jmarie]

You guys have CAKE for a wedding? How odd...We have lasagne....What a very unique idea! (kidding of course!)

[karen w]

We froze our top layer as well(in my mother's freezer). Juat before our first anniversary my parents flew out to visit us, and brought the frozen cake. It survived the airplane ride, freezing, and then refreezing until our anniversary, and my mother's very poor wrapping job. The cake actually tasted pretty good, but the frosting was very dry. We each had a bite for tradition's sake.

[clairea]

We were planning to save the top layer of our cake, but my mother (who was obviously a little more flustered than we realized that night) was supposed to take it home and freeze it, but has no idea what happened to it (or her camera, or one earring . . . you get the idea) after the wedding. Oh well, we've survived 6 happy years without it, and it gave me an excuse to have a different wonderful dessert on our 1st anniversary.

[MelissaAS]

Our 1 year anniversary is in about a month, but unfortunately there was no cake to save. Believe it or not, we had a "fake" cake at our wedding- all but the top layer. We cut the top layer for the official cutting then it was swifted off to the back and the caterer used a sheet cake to serve everyone to ensure uniform, beautiful pieces for all of the guests! It was yummy and beautiful! And to this day, no one believes it was fake.

Thanks for the reminder to order a special cake for our anniversary- we close on our first house two days before the date so I'm a little distracted, but it's been a fabulous year!