Should you ice a wedding cake with thick icing or creamy?

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In the world of cake decorating, wedding cakes stand in a place all their own. For the sheer wealth of detail and elaborate technique involved, wedding cakes are rivaled only by the extravagant confections produced for competition purposes. Yet, at the end of the day, a wedding cake is still a cake, and details such as the choice of icing are decided by many factors.

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1. One Cake vs. Two

   • The cutting of the cake is one of the focal points of a wedding reception, a time when the cameras come out and a multitude of photos are taken. Traditionally, the showpiece wedding cake would be cut and served, but this can make for a large and unwieldy cake, very difficult to assemble and move. Couples may prefer to make or purchase a smaller decorated cake for the cake-cutting ceremony and a larger sheet cake to serve their guests. This affects the choice of icing, which can be different for each cake.

   Choice of Cake

   • The choice of cake is dictated, to some extent, by texture. An elaborately decorated cake must have a reasonably dense, firm texture to support the weight of fondant, icing and decorations. Traditional choices include fruitcake, pound cake or a firm, white butter cake. If the majority of guests will be served from a separate sheet cake, it can be made in any style and from any recipe as it won't have to support the weight of the decorations.

   Icing for the Sheet Cake

   • If a separate sheet cake will be served, the choice of icing is determined primarily by the choice of cake. The rule of thumb is that a dense icing goes best with a dense cake and a light icing goes best with a light cake. By that logic, choose a basic American- or French-style buttercream to decorate a butter cake or pound cake, while lighter sponge cakes are suited to a fluffy Italian- or Swiss-style buttercream. Some specialized cakes, such as carrot cake or fruit cake, might use cream cheese icing, marzipan or fondant.

   Icing for the Showpiece Cake

   • Heavily decorated showpiece wedding cakes have their own logic, aside from the rule of matching the density of cake and icing. Simple cakes can be iced with a suitable buttercream in the same way as a sheet cake, but this limits their ability to take decorations. It also makes them highly perishable on a warm day. It's more common to ice the cake with buttercream and then cover the buttercream with doughlike fondant, which provides an elegantly smooth surface for decorating and is much less prone to melting.

Source: www.ehow.com

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