What is the difference between Wedding and Birthday cake?

clarification: talking about the actual cake, not the decorations or layout. Supposedly wedding cake always tastes better than a birthday cake.





Are there different ingredients in a wedding cake? I've known people to only buy expensive birthday cakes from wedding cake bakers.





Just curious if there is a difference in the mix or the baking process.

What is the difference between Wedding and Birthday cake?
Know Your Ingredients


Wedding CAKE





The main ingredients of shortened cakes are fat, sugar, eggs and flour. Some recipes also call for chemical leaveners (baking powder or baking soda), milk, buttermilk or sour cream, flavoring extracts, and a pinch of salt to heighten the flavors.





A feature that characterizes shortened cakes--also known as "high-ratio cakes"--is their high proportion of fat and sugar to flour. These ingredients are what make cakes tender, moist and dense. Since there are so few ingredients in these cakes, use high-quality butter and pure flavoring extracts, measure with perfect accuracy and follow the recipe directions to achieve the best results.





Butter is usually the fat of choice, or a combination of butter and shortening. Shortening is easier to work with, because it is already partially aerated and remains at the same texture over a wide temperature range, but butter gives incomparable flavor and mouth-feel











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The Mixing Method





The "creaming method" is the same mixing technique you use for a batch of chocolate chip cookies--for cakes, however, you keep beating air into the mix. Over-mixing, which would cause the cookies to spread flat when baking, is hard to do when creaming butter and sugar for a cake. Beat room-temperature butter with granulated sugar (superfine, castor, or "bakers' sugar" is best) until the butter is very fluffy and noticeably lighter in color.





Add room temperature eggs one by one, beating after each addition. Adding all of the eggs or too much cold liquid at once will cause the batter to look curdled. Add any extracts or flavorings after incorporating the eggs.





Once you start adding dry ingredients, be careful not to over-beat the batter. The gentle handling is critical to creating a fine, not tough, texture in a cake. Many recipes alternate adding dry ingredients and any additional liquid; mix well after each addition, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Stop mixing when each addition is well incorporated











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Before You Begin





Make sure that all of your ingredients are at room temperature, particularly the fat, eggs and any liquid you may be using. It's essential that all these items be at room temperature:





If the butter is too cold, it won't beat evenly; it won't incorporate air and increase in volume.


When eggs and liquid are cold, the batter will curdle. Instead of a smooth, homogenous batter, it will separate into liquid and fat. You can still proceed with the recipe, but the cake's texture may be denser than you like.


If any of the ingredients are warm, the fat will melt and you won't be able to whip air into the mixture.


The second thing you need to do before mixing the batter is to thoroughly sift together all the dry ingredients. Cake flour and cocoa powder are especially fine, and form small lumps that won't get broken up during the mixing process. Unevenly mixed ingredients can result in a cake with big holes and tunnels through the middle, riddled with lumps of raw flour. Use a sifter or a wire whisk to make sure all lumps are broken up and those ingredients are really and truly mixed together.

















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More Cake Tips





You don't have to have a stand mixer to make a butter cake or pound cake, but it sure helps. Begin by beating the softened butter at medium speed until fluffy and light in color, about three minutes. Add the sugar and continue to beat for about four minutes longer. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs one at a time and beat for several seconds between each addition. If the batter does curdle, just continue whipping it; it should smooth out once it warms up.





After you've beaten in the eggs, you must mix in the remaining ingredients as gently and quickly as possible to avoid deflating the air you've so carefully beaten into the mixture.





Slow the mixer down to low speed and sprinkle in about 1/3 of the dry ingredients.


Mix the batter while pouring in about 1/3 of the liquid (this includes milk, buttermilk, sour cream, juice, or coffee).


Continue in this fashion until all of the ingredients are incorporated into a smooth batter.


Any garnishes--nuts, fruit, chocolate chips or other additions--should be very gently folded in by hand after the batter is mixed.














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Baking Cakes





Pour the batter immediately into a prepared baking pan--either greased and floured, or greased and lined with parchment paper--and bake in the preheated oven. As the cake bakes, it will rise high in the middle and turn a dark golden brown on the outside. Depending upon your oven, you may need to rotate the cake pans on their racks to ensure even baking.





Don't wait until the cake has pulled away from the sides of the pan to test for doneness: test it by pressing gently with a fingertip near the center. The cake should slowly spring back. (You can also insert a toothpick or cake tester near the center of the cake; it should come out clean, with no batter sticking to it.) Once you remove the cake from the oven, let it cool on a wire rack. Run a knife around the edges of the cake pan to loosen the cake, and invert the pan onto another rack or plate. Cool completely before slicing or frosting.





BIrthday CAKE


INGREDIENTS


2 cups white sugar


2 cups sifted all-purpose flour


3 egg yolks


1 egg


1/2 cup buttermilk


1 teaspoon vanilla extract


1/2 teaspoon salt


1 teaspoon baking powder


1 teaspoon baking soda


1/2 cup shortening


1 cup boiling water




















DIRECTIONS


Mix together the buttermilk with the baking soda. Set aside. Cream shortening, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Beat well.


Add buttermilk and baking soda mixture.


Sift dry ingredients, and add to creamed mixture.


Add boiling water, and mix well.


Pour into a greased and floured 9 x 13 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for approximately 35 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.


Let cool. I frost with cream cheese frosting.
Reply:I worked in a bakery for several years. We used the same cake for weddings and birthday cakes, as well as everyday cakes. Now, the wedding cakes tend to have layers that are much bigger; the different sizes are a little challenging to deal with, but other than that, they were identical to our other cakes.





The only thing that might change is that the fillings in a wedding cake might be more interesting because the brides sometimes suggested something different.





The other difference is $2- $3 a slice. Good luck!
Reply:The price?
Reply:they both are the same
Reply:I think the difference is in the quality. Most people don't think too much about b-day cake. If they don't make it themselves, they just buy it at the grocery store. For the wedding cake, people actually spend time trying different ones out %26amp; get it at a bakery or specialty cake shop.
Reply:Usually wedding cakes are made with fancy flavorings like almond or cherry, when birthday cakes are usually just the classic vainilla or chocolate.
Reply:Never knew a difference?








But i like Birthday cakes more..
Reply:wedding cakes are usually just plain vanilla





usually people want a better tasting cake for weddings then birthdays





so wedding cakes bakers are more rare and require allot of skill


well every cake has different ingredients and amounts usually bakers that have the talent to make a good wedding cake spend more time on the cake and have more experience on the ingridients to add
Reply:IDK BUT THEIR BOTH GOOD!!!!
Reply:I prefer a Carvel ice cream birthday cake over any wedding cake thank you very much.
Reply:It's all made from the same stuff.





The recipe may differ somewhat .. and the combination of icings may be different .. but it just depends on everyone's recipes.
Reply:Not really. Wedding cakes are traiditionally a white cake w/ almond extract flavoring and could include a filing of fruit or icing.





Birthday cakes can be anything really, whatever the birthday boy or girl likes best!
Reply:The iceing of course
Reply:well a wedding cak usualy has the 3 cakes stacked into a small pyramid, biggest on bottom, medium size in the middle, and smalles on top and has 2 little action figures of 2 people that are getting married, and a birthday cake is just a single cake that says happy birthday(then whoever)
Reply:A wedding is for marrige and birthdays are for celebrating the day of peoples birth.
Reply:wedding cakes are huge and have a bride and groom on the top. and are fancy. %26amp; birthday cakes are small and simple
Reply:I know nothing about cakes, BUT I think the people who make the birthday cake make a more kid style approach. They also put more sugar in it probably. For wedding cakes I think they bake it into better bread because a wedding is sort've(sp.) more epic in life than a birthday for some people.
Reply:I know that you can whatever kind of cake you want for your wedding....but I have noticed that many people get whipped cream frosting on wedding cakes rather than the regular sugar/shortening that most birthday cakes have. Perhaps that is why it tastes better. That and the fact a birthday cake may be made further in advance than a weddding cake and put on display.
Reply:The cost for one thing, people pay up to thousands of dollars for a wedding cake , so the quality of the ingredients should be better


But I am not a pastry chef ,Baker, wedding cake decorator/maker, so just my opinion


So I would guess wedding cakes should taste better than a Birthday cake.
Reply:Umm birthday cakes are a lot better..
Reply:I don't think there is any difference.
Reply:Wedding cakes are extremely expensive and don't taste very good because of all the fondant they are really there for show and the whole cake cutting as bride and groom experience.
Reply:Just a diifferent occasion, the fancy wedding cake makers are just nice cake shops or bakery's verses, doing a mix out of a box at home.
Reply:same taste
Reply:no there isn't any difference maybe just different bakers have different cake mixes or recipes but they can bake the same cakes for all both occasions
Reply:one's for the wedding, the other is for your birthday?








wedding cakes are more expensive and are made with rich white chocolate. ?
Reply:I don't think there is a difference in the cake at all- I make my own cakes, and even made my own wedding cake. The ingredients were the same! Recipes vary from baker to baker, and there are many different flavors to choose from.
Reply:There is no difference. The wedding cake tastes better because by the time you get to it you are halfway tanked.
Reply:There is no difference. Cake is cake.





Some people make their own birthday and wedding cakes, others buy from grocery stores, local bakeries, or high end bakeries.





The people you are refering to are buying their birthday cakes from bakeries that specialize in wedding cakes but bake other cakes too. Their wedding cakes and b-day cakes will be similar. Likewise the wedding cakes and b-day cakes from a grocery bakery will taste similar to eachother but different from the cakes at the specialty bakery.
Reply:birthday cakes dont usually have a bride and groom on them