Luxury Wedding Cakes; Naked Cake (Part 2)

Following on from part one, what style wedding cake do I want? This blog will look in more depth at naked cakes. So what is a naked cake, don't worry it has nothing to do with being naked!  Simply put it is a cake where you can see the layers of sponge and filling of each tier. 

Why would you choose this style of wedding cake? 
Naked cakes are hugely popular at rustic weddings, by adding fresh fruit, fresh flowers or both you can create a centre piece for your rustic wedding. Added bonus is they are great if your not fan of the fondant icing found on a more traditional cake. 
You can easily personalised a naked cake by adding bunting, or for a bit of colour add macarons and chocolate drips.

Just because your having your wedding in a hotel and not a barn or marquee does not mean you can't have a rustic themed wedding. Just last week I set up a naked sponge at The Park Hotel, Barnstaple. The couple had tied in the rustic theme by using a log cake stand and log centre pieces. Then with fresh flowers that match the bouquet and centre pieces we tied the cake in as well.  However most of the rustic style cakes I deliver go to marquees or barns that have been decked out in bunting, hessian and other rustic decorations. 

There are a few downsides to a naked cake. First is that it has no icing to stop it from drying out! To reduce this I cook your cake the day before the wedding, its then cling filmed over night. Then an early start to the day of your wedding to sugar syrup and fill your cake, I then cling film it ready for transport. I always set up your wedding cake on the morning of the wedding so your cake has only a few hours to sit before being eaten. 
Secondly you can see the flavours and filling, now the cake above still had four different flavours (vanilla, lemon, salted caramel and strawberry) but if you wanted a chocolate tier you will have a different colour sponge. This can cause the cake to look mismatched, unless you have three tiers and pop it in the middle like the cake below. Similarly the cake at the bottom of the post has raspberry as the bottom tier you will notice the pink tinge to the buttercream from the fresh raspberries. 

So I hope that has helped you find out more about naked wedding cakes. Next weeks blog will be about semi naked wedding cakes.