I found one which was made in the brides image but couldn’t copy. Not that pretty. Can’t imagine chomping on my bestie’s nose, ha

Gorgeous looking but not appetizing to me. Are these just for show or do guests eat them?

Agree on the work/creativity...but no thanks.

We had two wedding "cakes" (Jamaican wedding and then USA wedding). This was Suzi's idea. No cake like cupcakes! Easy to eat, nothing fancy. And they were all gone by the end of the night:

Wow, some beautiful works of art there! I wouldn't want to eat them.

All but one wedding reception I've been to for many years has served cupcakes and/or mini cheesecakes, rather than cake. The other was my cousin's wedding and his bride pre-made dozens of pies and it was self-serve from an old pie cupboard. That was a huge hit -- her variety of choices was fantastic!

Let's get down to basics: Fondant isn't appetizing. Sometimes it's really thin and put on over layers of ganache, jam and buttercream, so you don't really taste it as much as notice the stickygumness of it messing up the texture, but when it's just fondant over crumb coat, it's really bad. To me, if it doesn't remind me of something delicious, it's not going to make me desire it. There's no way I could eat a big buttercream rose, but I remember the joys from childhood, and how we'd eat one petal at a time to savor the sweet soft texture, so a proper buttercream cake, even very fancy and bridal, can make me want to eat it, unless it has dragées or something similarly unpleasant stuck on.

I find the whole concept of sculptural cakes interesting. They can have thousands of man hours in them and are the ultimate in ephemeral. They don't just dissolve--they're consumed! Many times, rather than cut up the sculpture, or to rein in mass or price, the pretty cake stays uncut, and they serve tasty, normal sheet cakes from the kitchen. That's efficient, but for a wedding, with all the customs and superstitions, I think it's better to have cakes meant to be eaten.

The main thing is the taste of the cake. To sculpt well, they sometimes use a denser or firmer sponge. They use Rice Krispy Treats for the tricky bits. They use modeling chocolate for detail work, which is only slightly nicer to eat than fondant. It's all edible, but would you?

My own preference is for real, fluffy light delicious cake with real. not too thick buttercream, and maybe a jam or custard filling. Because that's what's yummy. Okay, cream filling is also okay, just not my own choice. But legit. :)

As plllog said, fondant just isn't good, but it depends on the person. My oldest daughter cared less that the cake was "perfect", but wanted good cake and buttercream frosting, it had to taste good or she didn't want it. So, that's what I made.

My youngest daughter is the complete opposite, she wanted it to look just so and didn't care about flavor, she said the guests could peel the fondant off if they didn't want to eat it, but she wanted those "perfect" pictures. So, I made this one:

My stepdaughter wanted a cupcake tower, similar to Ricky's, so I did that too, but I made little hearts inside the cupcakes as a special touch:

I've gone to some fancy weddings where the cake was so big that I couldn't imagine it being cut, and others that were obviously so expensive I'm surprised I didn't break my teeth on all the gold in that cake.

I think they are impressive and they are pretty, but I lean much more toward just making it taste good. Others, like Ashley, are all about appearance. It just depends on the occasion and the bride/guest of honor, I suppose. I'm not going to say either one is "wrong", but the premise is definitely different.

I really don't understand the "fish tank" cake, though, that's just unusual...

Annie

the only fondant I like … is the emperor's new fondant … [none]

Annie, seems like tasting good s/b priority one. I am so impressed that you can do good tasting and good looking. I wish I were munching on the heart muffin, yum!

LOL, bragu, that's the only fondant I like too. It's just nasty stuff, but it's great fun to play with, it's like Play Doh. I make something, don't like it, squish it back up and make it over again. I tried making my own fondant and it was a miserable failure, I couldn't work with it at all, it just fell apart. Didn't taste good either....

Bossy, I agree, taste should be the first priority as far as I'm concerned. But, in today's weddings, where dresses run in the thousands and total bills are multiple thousands, appearance seems to be much more important than something as plebian as taste. Appearance has become everything in some of those weddings.

And I still don't understand the fish tank, LOL.

Annie

Annie, your cakes are GORGEOUS! I'm all about taste too. The only fondant-wrapped buttercream-frosted cake I ever ate was the one my niece made for her 21st birthday and it was both gorgeous and delicious! wish I could find a pic of it. amazing.

My daughter used to make Christening cakes using rolled fondant. She found that adding a bit of almond extract to the fondant made a huge difference - really quite good. A cake covered in rolled fondant, done well, is a joy to see. I prefer sugar paste flowers on a special cake as they are so realistic looking.

My daughter's wedding cake had gardenias and lily of the valley on the corners - it was gorgeous. It was a filled cake with multiple layers, divided by raspberry and lemon curd. It was covered with rolled marzipan. The ecru color with the white gardenias reflected the antique lace veil she wore with a pearl white satin gown. Not a bite left on anyone's plate!

She did something quite similar with her christening cakes and actually reused her wedding cake sugar paste flowers, "renting" them to the people ordering her cakes. Gorgeous AND delicious!

I don't care for cake but do enjoy the insanity of decoration. Some are a bit over the top but Annie's and Rickey's are classic gorgeous. It's a nice tradition.

I do like the Asian take-out container one.

I used to be the big baker in the family... all the birthday, shower, anniversary cakes, etc. I never bothered with fondant, but I did amazing things with homemade marzipan, and people liked to eat that.

Thank you for your interesting comments. I admire the cakes I posted above, just not sure I want to eat them.

But this one, I’d immediately want to stick my fingers for a taste of this Icing awa the roses. Chinese takeout cake, not so much.

Yes, Bossyvossy, that last cake looks like one might want to eat it, wrinkles and all. :) I like the wrinkles. Kind of shabby chic, and like unpressed linen.

.....

That's it! Fondant is the Poly/Spandex of the cake world! And buttercream is the linen!

The fondant with almond does sound better, Anglophilia, but it's the texture of fondant that makes it particularly awful, to me.

Although some people don't care for marzipan, in its normal form it does taste good to most people and is excellent for modelling and sheeting. Someone, Colleen maybe?, said that marzipan sheet or plaque covering on fancy cakes is the norm in Australia. I'd far rather bite into a deco made of marzipan than modelling chocolate. I don't mind molded chocolates made with good tempered chocolate, or chocolate tuiles, ribbons, etc., made by the baker. It's the generic pastry supply bucket of modelling chocolate that has such a weird texture and flavor that I object to on parts that are meant to be eaten. If they're molded figures that aren't meant to be eaten any more than the plastic cake decorations our moms used to use, I don't care. It could just as well be FIMO. :) Edible FIMO rather than part of the dessert.

Annie, those heart centered cupcakes are really cute! All of your cakes are lovely, and most do look tempting (the mermaid one did look tempting to my inner six-year-old even if the color was a little intense for the rest of me). Maybe not so much the perfect black and white fondant, but knowing you baked it would give me great hope for what's inside. :)

I understand why bakeries are so fond of fondant. It doesn't melt at room temperature. With a crumb coat, it seals the cake so it stays fresh longer. A polished surface takes a lot less work/hr. than a beautifully piped buttercream. Etc. But I suppose part of my issue with it is that I don't get a lot of opportunities to eat cake and I love cake. My family would rather have fruit, pie, ice cream, etc., all of which are food, not just sweets, so I have no one to feed cakes and cookies to. I certainly don't need them on my daily fare. So when I go to a party and get a piece of cake, I get really disappointed if it's not good cake!

plllog, I'd rather not eat either marzipan, fondant, or modeling chocolate - and I'm with you, a good cake, with creamy frosting (and yes, I love buttercream but not the crisco buttercream, the real stuff) and I'm a happy, happy camper!

I make my own modeling chocolate as well, but I don't care for it either.

I recently attended an elaborate wedding where there was a tiny "over the top" cake for the Bride & Groom to cut. For the guests, there were 3 beautiful towers of different flavored Whoopie Pies. My husband was swooning. LOL

The Bride said she wanted something her guests would enjoy. There wasn't a crumb of Whoopie Pies left at the end of the night!