Alternative Wedding Cakes: is a Real Cheese Wedding Cake for You?

Cheese wed­ding cakes are the lat­est trend for wed­dings and are get­ting more pop­u­lar by the day with cheese man­u­fac­tur­ers across the coun­try expe­ri­enc­ing increased demand for these savoury delights. A few enlight­ened indi­vid­u­als first enjoyed a cheese wed­ding cake way back in 2004 and the trend really started to take hold in 2006 — now there are over two dozen British com­pa­nies cre­at­ing cheese wed­ding cakes for cou­ples up and down the coun­try all report­ing either steady or increased sales.

We can see why!

They’re dif­fer­ent: Cheese wed­ding cakes are deli­cious alter­na­tive wed­ding cakes and with over 700 dif­fer­ent named cheeses pro­duced in Britain there is bound to be some­thing for every­one. A lot of peo­ple don’t nec­es­sar­ily like fruit­cake and a cheese wed­ding cake is the per­fect solu­tion for those look­ing for some­thing a lit­tle different.

They’re beau­ti­ful: Often appear­ance is as impor­tant as taste with a tra­di­tional wed­ding cake but cheese wed­ding cakes can be just as pretty. There are thou­sands of color com­bi­na­tions you can cre­ate with a cheese wed­ding cake and with a wealth of dec­o­ra­tion options like fruit, flow­ers, feath­ers and rib­bons you can eas­ily cus­tomise your cake to fit the theme of your wedding.

They’re unique: If you look around you will find most com­pa­nies offer a bespoke ser­vice as well as ready cho­sen options so if the groom is Scot­tish and the bride is Welsh you can have a cheese to rep­re­sent every­one – the only ques­tion is which will be more pop­u­lar? If you are aim­ing for some­thing a lit­tle bit dif­fer­ent with your wed­ding, a cheese wed­ding cake is easy to cus­tomise. One cou­ple even ordered a Hal­loween themed cake for an Octo­ber wed­ding made from orange cheeses like Shrop­shire Blue and cov­ered in spiders!

They’re cost effec­tive: The aver­age cost of a cheese wed­ding cake is sim­i­lar to that of a tra­di­tional wed­ding cake but if the cut­ting of the cake comes straight after the wed­ding break­fast it can then be the cheese course. That’s two items on your wed­ding plan­ner ticked off for the price of one cen­tre­piece. Also, in the unlikely event that you have any cheese left it will keep for weeks in the fridge. Hard cheese like Ched­dar can be grated and frozen for use in sauces, whilst 250 gram por­tions of Blue Stil­ton wrapped in foil can be frozen for up to 3 months. The trick then is to defrost the Stil­ton cheese slowly in the fridge over night, so the good news is that the cheese wed­ding cake then becomes a zero waste option.

Alter­na­tive wed­ding cakes — straw­ber­ries and cheese! Photo credit York­shire Dales Cheese Co.

Top 10 Tips for choos­ing a cheese wed­ding cake

Here are our top 10 tips to help you choose the per­fect cheese wed­ding cake:

1. Allow­ing 100g of cheese per per­son will give you more than enough cheese for your guests and if you are incor­po­rat­ing your cheese wed­ding cake into a buf­fet or sit down meal you could halve that quantity.
2. Go on taste pri­mar­ily: if a cake is to be a real stun­ner it will be the sen­sory expe­ri­ence of taste that will wow guests and using British cheeses is the best way to get all the flavours you need.
3. A cheese wed­ding cake should pro­vide a bal­anced cheese board. Put it together with your guests in mind, not just your per­sonal favourites.
4. Be adven­tur­ous and order a British cheese you have never tried before. Often you will find it has a rich her­itage behind it which makes a great talk­ing point at the wed­ding, but always keep the ‘good cheese board’ theme in mind.
5. Avoid par­tic­u­larly strong smelling cheeses, espe­cially in sum­mer. If a strong cheese is a must check your venue is suf­fi­ciently air conditioned!
6. Look at all your options — you could have a tra­di­tional cake in the day­time and your alter­na­tive wed­ding cakes in the evening or you could put a mini cheese wed­ding cake on each table sav­ing the costs of flo­ral cen­ter­pieces on top of every­thing else.
7. Stick to dec­o­rat­ing the cake with fruit or edi­ble flow­ers. Ivy is not a good idea and bulbs such as tulips should have the stems wrapped before use.
8. A good sup­plier should make choos­ing a cake an enjoy­able expe­ri­ence, be able to offer lots of reli­able advice and give you the oppor­tu­nity to sam­ple the cheeses you will have on the day.
9. Always try to look at the sizes of the cheese you want to use and make sure that the cheese is evenly grad­u­ated. It sim­ply doesn’t look as good if the cheese sizes are too sim­i­lar or too far apart.
10. Think about the color com­bi­na­tions of the cheese you use, and you can eas­ily make your cheese wed­ding cake fit with theme of the rest of your day.

Pop­u­lar British cheeses for cheese wed­ding cakes

Most peo­ple pre­fer their wed­ding cake to rep­re­sent a tra­di­tional cheese board and then have a few unusual cheeses to make it a lit­tle dif­fer­ent. Pop­u­lar choices include: Cor­nish Yarg; Blue Stil­ton; Mature Ched­dar; British Brie or Camem­bert; Creamy Lan­cashire, Cheshire, Wens­ley­dale with Cran­ber­ries, White Stil­ton with Apri­cots and Red Leicester.

Other more exotic British Cheeses you could try include: Red hot Mex­i­can cheese, West Coun­try Farm­house Ched­dar, Northum­ber­land Net­tle, Shrop­shire Blue, Sage Derby or try one of your local cheeses.

Where to buy your cheese wed­ding cake

Here is a selec­tion of the cheese wed­ding cake providers you could try:

• The Big Cheese Cake Com­pany www.hrhbigcheesecakecompany.co.uk
• The Wed­ding Cheese Cake Co www.cheesecakes4weddings.co.uk
• The Liv­er­pool Cheese Com­pany www.liverpoolcheesecompany.co.uk
• The House of Cheese www.houseofcheese.co.uk
• The Cheese Fac­tor www.cheese-factor.co.uk
• The Cheese Shed www.thecheeseshed.com
• The York­shire Dales Cheese Co. www.yorkshiredalescheese.co.uk
• Wens­ley­dale Dairy prod­ucts Stock­ist no: 01969 667664

There are over 700 dif­fer­ent named cheeses pro­duced in Britain, and a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent tex­tures and styles. You can find out more about the dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories of cheese avail­able on the British Cheese Board web­site at: http://www.britishcheese.com/cheese

See more cheese wed­ding cake ideas on Pin­ter­est and check out this board of alter­na­tive wed­ding cakes too!