Wedding Cake Ideas!

Brides Crave 'Naked' Cakes for Summer Weddings

Reprinted from Yahoo New!By MATTIE KAHN | Good Morning America – 23 hours ago

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  Good Morning America - Brides Crave 'Naked' Cakes for Summer Weddings (ABC News)

The wedding cake is getting a make-under this season.

Responding to requests for more seasonal and visually appetizing cakes, bakeries across the country have taken to producing custom creations that they've christened 'naked' cakes. Like traditional wedding showpieces, these confections sandwich creamy buttercream frosting between tiers of tender layer cake. But the similarities end there. Because of their exposed-crumb finish, these cakes prove that it's what's on the outside that counts.

The brain behind the bold new look is Christina Tosi. As the owner of Momofuku Milk Bar, Tosi is famous for her whimsical approach to seriously delicious baked goods. Her signature wedding cakes are no exception. Featuring such flavors as salted pretzel and 'birthday cake,' these works of art are a welcome departure from the industry standard. Tosi says a desire to cast recipes and flavors as the "visual stars" of her creations pushed her to reinvent more traditional models. "Why am I hiding all of the colorful, textural, exciting parts of being in the kitchen behind of decor?" she remembers asking herself. "Why not challenge the norm?"

It seems brides are just as eager to buck convention. Superfine Bakery owner Andrea Boudewijn reports that the trend has becoming increasingly popular at her Los Angeles studio: "It's not the same old white wedding cake with buttercream and flowers. It's very fashionable and stylish and delicious, frankly." Unlike their fondant-covered cousins, 'naked' cakes cannot be prepared ahead of time. They are especially susceptible to air and tend to dry out quickly. To keep them moist, Boudewijn bakes and assembles each cake on the morning of the wedding. "It's high risk, but it's important."

Head pastry chef at Alice's Tea Cup in New York John Rusk agrees that taste plays into the growing demand for exposed-edge cakes. "[Couples] want something that looks appetizing. And since there's not as much time needed to decorate them, we can assemble them much closer than the time that they're going to be eating and enjoyed.”

But despite their relative simplicity, Brooklyn-based baker Alana Jones-Mann promises that bare cakes can feel just as special as more intricate models: "The filling, the top, the overall décor of the cake will really set the tone. There’s still a way to keep them unique." A selection of just-ripened berries, fruity preserves, or fresh flowers are her favorite adornments. Jones-Mann encourages brides considering the stripped-down style to look toward the calendar for inspiration. "I always recommend not putting sugar flowers or fondant on the top of the cake, because I want to choose elements that will add to the natural beauty of the cake," she says. "Let the season influence the flavor."

Imagined by Alana Jones-Mann, this large chocolate cake (center) is filled with vanilla buttercream (center) and adorned with fresh seasonal fruit. It is flanked by two smaller French vanilla cakes layered with vanilla buttercream and topped with a mixed-berry preserve and fresh berries.

JBM Weddings

This playful carrot cake from Ellen Baumwoll of Bijoux Doux Specialty Cakes is topped with fresh fruit and flowers.

Bijoux Doux, Cheryl Kleinman Cakes, Betty Bakery

This whipped cream cake by Edith Meyer Wedding Cakes is filled with chocolate ganache and seasonal berries and topped with fresh flowers.

Edith Meyer/Edith Meyer Wedding Cakes

This three-tier salted pretzel cake by Momofuku Milk Bar is filled with stout ganache and burnt honey frosting and sprinkled with salted pretzel crumbs. Owner Christina Tosi is determined to stay on the cutting edge. These days, she's running slightly ahead of schedule: "I'm dreaming of gingerbread houses [and] cranberries and cream cheese frosting."

Momofuku Milk Bar

Momofuku Milk Bar mixed three unique flavors to create this large three-tier cake. The bottom tier is made of rainbow birthday cake crumble and vanilla frosting. The middle tier is made of cheesecake, apple compote, and pie crumbs. The top tier is a mini salted pretzel cake.

Momofuku Milk Bar

Momofuku Milk Bar created this four-tier dulce de leche cake. The sweet treat is filled with dulce de leche frosting, dulce de leche, and milk crumbs.

Momofuku Milk Bar

A simple vanilla buttercream cake from Nine Cakes offers a minimalist take on the popular trend.

Nine Cakes

Nine Cakes baked up an apple spice cake layered with lashings of caramel cream cheese buttercream.

Nine Cakes

Superfine Bakery in Los Angeles, California cooked up this dreamy lemon cake filled with raspberry puree buttercream.

Superfine Bakery

Superfine Bakery calls this black-and-white confection its ‘Tuxedo’ flavor. To make it, Andrea Boudewijn alternates layers of ‘Black Onyx’ chocolate and vanilla cakes and fills the top and bottom layers of each tier with house-made fleur de sel caramel buttercream. A pure caramel center is a decadent surprise. The cake is adorned with fresh fruit and fleur de sel caramel sauce.

Superfine Bakery

This champagne cake from Superfine Bakery is encircled with olive branches and filled with strawberry puree buttercream.

Superfine Bakery

Also Read

Utah Family's Four Children All Get Married in One Big Shared Wedding

Story from Yahoo Shine, written by Lilit Marcus, Shine Contributor

Jessica, Grace, mom Marie, Meagan, and Blaire on wedding day. Photo courtesy Amber Davis.

Marie and Kevin Fortney of St. George, Utah, never expected their four children to get engaged at the same time, let alone to decide to marry on the exact same day. But daughters Grace, Meagan, and Jessica and son Marcus decided that they wanted one huge wedding for all four couples. The happy event took place on Friday, June 15.

"They're all real close to each other," Marie Fortney tells Yahoo Shine about her kids, who are all close in age. Some are the Fortneys' biological children, and some are adopted. A fifth sibling, oldest son Casey, died last year, and the tragedy brought the family even closer. At first, eldest daughter Grace, 23, was holding off on her wedding to fiance Nick until her 21-year-old brother Marcus returned from his Mormon mission in Mexico. But when her two sisters, Meagan, 23, and Jessica, 19, began dating two close friends (Taylor and Kipp, respectively) and talking about marriage, and Marcus started planning a wedding with longtime girlfriend Blaire when he got home, the idea for group nutptials took hold.

For Mom, one of the challenges was making sure that each couple felt special and included. "We took the girls individually and picked out their wedding dresses," Fortney explains. "We did not know any of our children's in-laws very well, so we called each of them right off and took them out to dinner and got acquainted with them and explained that we wanted each family to have the wedding for their son or daughter that they wanted. We wanted to make it a happy time for everyone involved."Each couple had their own ceremony, which lasted about half an hour at the St. George Utah Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Then came a big communal buffet reception at a local ballroom. And every detail was a family affair: Kevin's sister, a florist, helped with flowers for the wedding, and members of all five families pitched to help make centerpieces. A Fortney family friend, Amber Davis, volunteered her photography services. 

Just as the siblings and their new spouses set off for their separate honeymoons, the story of the family's mega-wedding began making headlines after The Daily Mail wrote a story about it. Soon, Marie was being recognized by strangers. "I went into a store yesterday and a lady said 'Are you the woman with the brides? I saw it on TV this morning!'" she reports. But the Fortneys, now done with wedding planning, are taking the attention in stride. "We might as well enjoy it. My work's over. Now I can just enjoy these couples."

Next up for the Fortneys? They hope that their children's strong connections will remain throughout the rest of their lives and that they bring the family grandchildren who continue the loving bond. "That makes me excited, because I grew up with cousins my age who I was close to," Marie says about the possibility of her kids having grandchildren around the same time. "I hope they always stay close."