Todd Maughan
Rounds of specialty cheeses make for a playful take on traditional wedding cakes.
Ashley and Jeff Burger love each other. And they love cheese.
So when they started considering cakes for their wedding last November, she remembered a joke a friend once made.
“She said she wanted to have a cake of cheese at her wedding so that her dad or someone else would say, ‘Okay, everyone, the bride and groom will now cut the cheese,’” Burger says. “I thought that was hysterical. Then I saw that people actually were doing cakes made out of cheese.”
It’s no joke that more couples are opting for cakes made of cheese at their weddings, with wheels that stack nicely and take on any decorations that couples, caterers or florists might choose.
“It’s actually become a nice business for us,” Fromagination owner Ken Monteleone says. “It seems to be catching on.”
Fromagination got into the cake business last year after Monteleone noticed that cheese shops in England were doing it. The British Cheese Board says shops there started using cheese for cake tiers in 2004, and it turned into a full-blown trend two years later.
“The more I started to see how the different shapes take on the look of cake, I thought it was something we should be doing,” Monteleone says. “A lot of people serve cheese at their weddings in Wisconsin, so why not do it in an unconventional way?”
Carr Valley Cheese of LaValle also is in the cake business. The company offers suggestions for “Celebration Cakes” and their care on its website.
Most times the cheese doesn’t replace the traditional wedding cake, but is something guests nibble with drinks before the wedding meal. Ashley Burger said neither she nor her husband have much of a sweet tooth, so they didn’t see the value in splurging on a fancy wedding cake. A cake of cheese, though, seemed a perfect solution for their wedding, which was held last November at the Barn at Harvest Moon Pond in Poynette.
“People loved it,” she says. “It was original, it was Wisconsin. We had old fashioneds and we had cheese, so it was kind of a theme.”
The Burgers’ cake was made primarily of Wisconsin cheeses. The base was a wheel of Roth’s Grand Cru, followed by wheels of Uplands Cheese Company’s Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Roth’s Van Gogh gouda and Roth’s GranQueso, topped by two soft cheeses: Humboldt Fog by Cypress Grove in California and La Clare Farms’ Martone.
Fromagination features pre-designed cakes that range from $65 to $550. But the shop also will make custom cakes, inviting couples to sample what they might want as layers. In addition, Fromagination can provide a cheesemonger on site for $45 an hour to prepare and talk about the cheese.
There’s also the option to have the entire cake there for show, and to take the same cheeses and plate them ahead of time. That’s what the Burgers did, and 125 guests were served a plate with slices of cheese along with grapes the couple bought themselves. The bill for the cake, the cheesemonger, delivery and decoration was $470.
Some of the large cakes of cheese serve hundreds, but customers can scale down, too. An economical choice, Monteleone says, might be a base of brie-like Moses Sleeper from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont, topped by Little Lucy brie from Redhead Creamery in Minnesota, topped by Landmark Creamery’s Petit Nuage.
“That would probably set you back $50 and serve quite a few people,” he says.
The cakes don’t require a specialty cheese shop or a cheesemonger to be present, though a little guidance can’t hurt. Fromagination has shipped cakes as far as New York, and includes directions on how to care for the cheese.
“We don’t want them to collapse,” Monteleone says. “We don’t build them with braces in between. If it’s an outdoor wedding and the cake sits out for several hours, it’s going to start melting.”
