Conference turris::cooks

    Would you be looking for the recipe... or for a bakery/someone who
    makes that style cake.
    
    I have the name of someone (not with me) who lives in Boston and does
    make the "traditional" cakes. I can furnish the info if you'd like!?
    
    Bob G.
    

    I think that you are refering to is "grooms cake" which used to be given
    out in little white boxes at the reception. This is usually baked in
    sheet cake form frosted and then boxed.  To make a wedding cake of the
    dark fruit cake could end up with a real problem, one because of the
    weight, and two because of the dark moisture seeping through the white
    frosting.  This would depend on the size of the cake. A small one might
    work out ok.  
    This is also a very expensive cake to bake.  When I bake wedding cakes,
    I usually charge $1.25 per slice for an ordinary white, yellow or
    chocolate cake.  A fruit cake would probably cost out at around $3.00
    per slice.  That could be why bakeries don't offer fruit cake.  Also to
    try to bake a large tier for the bottom could be a bit of a problem
    because if its bigger than 8" it should be baked in an angel food cake
    pan or it won't be done in the middle. Fruit cake needs a long time in
    a slow oven.
    I have baked a lot of fruit cakes, if you want more info send mail. 

>    per slice.  That could be why bakeries don't offer fruit cake.  Also to
>    try to bake a large tier for the bottom could be a bit of a problem
>    because if its bigger than 8" it should be baked in an angel food cake
>    pan or it won't be done in the middle. Fruit cake needs a long time in
 
Are you saying that any cake that is larger than 8" would need to be baked
in an angel food cake pan, or just fruit cakes?  (I've done 12" x 3" round
standard yellow cakes, without any special pans, so I'm curious.)

--Sharon
  

    I was refering to fruit cakes, and it's because of the long slow
    cooking time. The outside would be completely dried out or burned by
    the time the center was cooked.  Most fruit cakes bake at 300 or 325
    degrees for about 60 or 70 minutes, for a standard size.

Are you talking about the traditional British wedding cake? A heavy dry-ish 
fruit cake with hard frosting that lasts a long time?

You might want to check British cook books. (or get someone to bring one back
from England -- that's where my wedding rehearsal cake came from :-) )

-- Nisha

    
    re .2 (and the last note). We in Britain have no tradition of a
    "Groom's cake" - only of a multi-tier wedding cake made from a solid
    fruit cake, topped with marzipan and iced with "Royal icing".
    
    I have never heard of a "bleed through" problem - and the upper tier is
    traitionally kept for use as a christening cake or as an anniversary
    cake - so they last *years* when properly stored!
    
    I have a recipe at home somewhere if nobody can find one (my
    grandmother was a Master Confectioner - and for would be feminists
    amongst the resadership this is a title given to both men and women)
    
    /. Ian .\

    If one frosts the cake with marzapan, there wouldn't be a "bleeding
    through problem, but here in the States, most bakeries use a buttercream
    frosting.      

    Thank you all for the information.  My fiance and I decided to go to a
    commercial bakery, and we ordered a carrot cake with white icing, as
    close as we could get to the dark cake we were looking for.  When I was
    a child, I attended a wedding that had the dark fruitcake-like quality,
    so the folks involved must have had English ancestry.  I never knew
    that before.
    
    Carry on!

I seem to remember the traditional wedding cake (loaded with fruit, very
heavy, etc.) recipe for a three tiered cake was in the fanny farmer baking book.
If not there, it will surely be in my other 20 year old book.  I will check
tonight.

			D