The latest techniques take the cake

The focus of the wedding cake is on personalization.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
Fresh cream cakes and carrot cakes. Brownie cakes and cheesecakes. These are the new faces of the once-white, plain confectionery wedding cake.
"Other than the gown, the cake is the next major focus. It's just such a symbol. It is such a thing of beauty," said Pat Vaum, 47, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., a student who has learned to make wedding cakes at Culinard, The Culinary Institute of Virginia College in Homewood, Ala.
The school's wedding-cake program is keeping pace with brides' whims and trends that are often driven by what brides read in national bride and fashion magazines.
"It's challenging for us who make wedding cakes to keep up with new techniques, with things that are available to (brides)," said Natasha Capper, co-instructor in wedding cakes at Culinard. She is also executive pastry chef at Piedmont Driving Club, an Atlanta country club.
Now, the whole focus is on customization and personalization -- taking what it is about that cake you really love, flowers and designs -- combined from pictures to make a one-of-a-kind cake, Capper said.
"Gone are the days when you have (pictures of) cakes and you sit down and look at the album and say, 'That one.' We want to have it to be a reflection of a person's own individual style," Capper said.
Vaum has been a student in a wedding-cake program that meets Friday nights at Culinard.
The program includes 12 students per quarter. In the program's first class, Vaum said she learned about gum-paste flowers, cake layers (each cake conceals props and weighs 100 pounds), international varieties, history and more.
By the end of the term, a student is graded on her design and creation of a wedding cake, said chef Antony Osborne, director of Culinard.
"You can bake the cakes and slap some icing on them and put them together, but some of them, with the flowers, they're just gorgeous. It takes an artist to do it," Vaum said.
"The biggest part of having a wedding-cake program is to teach people how to utilize a wide variety of (media) so you can give the bride the cake of her dreams," Capper said.