Unique Groom Cake

From LoveToKnow Weddings

Getting a Unique Groom Cake

Once the elegant wedding cake has been chosen, a couple may decide they want a unique groom cake. Traditionally served at either the rehearsal dinner or the wedding reception, the groom cake offers a way to incorporate a man’s perspective into an event often dominated by the bride and other women. The popularity of unique groom cakes has risen, making more and more couples chose to showcase their cakes at the reception.

Special flavors and fillings can make a groom cake unique.

Getting a groom cake may take a little work. Some wedding cake designers only do traditional cakes, while others may not have a range of flavors and fillings. If this is the case for you, ask for recommendations to find a baker and decorator that can do the original design you want.

When looking for a groom cake that requires using licensed characters, teams, or other copyright-protected material, you need to ask the baker if he or she is licensed to produce the image. This helps narrow down the number of bakeries you need to check out.

Unique Designs

Choosing the design of a cake is the biggest fun for many grooms (and their brides-to-be). Grooms often choose cakes that reflect their interests or occupations. Common themes include:

Military cakes
Hunting and fishing
Animals
Sports
Vegas/gambling
Music
Doctor/lawyer/teacher
Cars, trucks, or motorcycles
Tuxedo

More and more popular are shaped cakes. These cakes can be done in a variety of shapes, like ducks, cars, or even frogs for fairytale themed weddings. Often done with a combination of fondant and buttercream icing, these cakes are showpieces.

Instead of having a cake with a design element, some grooms want a simple tiered cake in their favorite flavor, decorated with simple designs. To theses men, it is all about the taste.

Unique Flavors

A unique groom cake does not only mean design, but also flavor. Traditionally, the wedding cake has been white while the groom cake is a chocolate or chocolate base. However, with wedding cakes incorporating multiple flavors and fillings, groom cakes have gone beyond the decadent chocolate flavors of the past.

Before ordering a groom cake, make sure the flavor is special to the groom. A childhood favorite is a big hit with friends and relatives. If the cake flavor is the most important, consider having the groom’s mom bake the cake to be sure it is just right. Unique flavors can be incorporated into:

Actual cake
Frosting
Fillings

Cake Flavors

Cake flavors can run the gamut from simple marble to a pumpkin walnut spice cake. The flavor can be complementary to the actual wedding cake, like a lemon wedding cake and a raspberry groom’s cake. But the groom should really choose a flavor that he enjoys and is special to him.

Other cake flavors include:

Yellow
Red velvet
German chocolate
Coconut
Banana nut
Apple cinnamon
Angel food
Strawberry

Some grooms are happy with regular cakes. Instead, they may choose to have a cheesecake, pies, torts, cookies, or other dessert that was special when growing up.

Frostings

The frosting on your unique cake needs to complement the flavor. Cream cheese, buttercream, marzipan, and flavored frostings are big hits. For chocolate cakes, a ganache can be beautiful.

Frosting choice makes a difference for the kind of design you want as well. Royal frosting makes sense for doing designs that need to be hard. Buttercream and fondant work well for designs. Frostings that need to be refrigerated, like cream cheese, should not be used in spring/summer outdoor wedding receptions.

Fillings

No matter what kind of cake you get, if it is has tiers, you may get to pick out a filling flavor. Fruit flavors are extremely popular, like raspberry, blueberry, lemon, and strawberry. Pudding or custard-like fillings are popular in vanilla or white-chocolate flavors.

Cakes with fillings often have the flavor accented on the outside of the cake if the design is simple. Chocolate covered strawberries adorn many chocolate or strawberry cakes, while lemon and orange zest make colorful accents on fruit filled cakes.

Your cake baker can recommend fillings that go with your cake choice and frostings that will work for the design you choose.

Cost of Unique Cakes

If you are getting a unique groom cake that requires labor-intensive decoration or the cake to be shaped, expect to pay significantly more for your cake. Flavors outside the baker’s normal repertoire may cost extra as well.

Expect to pay anywhere between three and eight dollars a slice in most cities. Extravagant cakes can cost upwards of twelve dollars. Before booking your cake, find out what the deposit is, and how much per slice you should pay. Additional charges may be included on the final bill, so find out what they may be before signing your contract.

Cake prices also vary by region, so expect to pay more in larger cities than smaller towns.

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