How To Cut A Cake
Knowing how to cut your wedding cake will make things easier and prevent a potential disaster. Diagrams show you how it can be done with different cake shapes
As with a lot of things there is no truly right or wrong way to cut your wedding cake. However it is good to be prepared and taking some minor precautions especially if you have a tiered wedding cake will make sure your cake stays looking beautiful and doesn’t topple from being cut too close to the supports for the upper tiers.
The Bride & Groom Cut First
Traditionally the Bride and the Groom will make the first cuts into the wedding cake, taking a slice and feeding each other to show their commitment to sharing the rest of their lives together.
Once this is done, the rest of the wedding cake can be divided to share amongst their guests. If you have wedding caterers, then the cutting of the cakes will not be a problem that you have to worry about.
If you have a friend or family member who is going to take care of this area for you at the reception, we have put together this guide with diagrams showing you how different wedding cake styles can be cut.
The shape of the cake is often a factor which will determine how the cake will be cut. Square and rectangular cakes are considered the easiest to cut because of their even shape.
The circular cake has a few different options. In recent years, couples have taken a more individual approach to the style and feel of their wedding so we see the emergence of hexagonal and petal shaped cakes.
Whichever method you choose to cut your wedding cake will provide you with a varying number of slices. So how you choose to slice your cake is really a matter of personal choice.
The rectangular/square cake
Simply cut across the cake then divide each slice as you wish.
The Circular cake
1. Probably the most popular way to cut a round cake is in wedges. The cake is first cut
in half then into quarters then each quarter is in turn Cut into halves and quarters.
2. Cut a circle in the centre of the cake. This is achieved by sticking the knife straight
into the cake, approximately 5 cm (2 inches) in from the edge of the cake; cutting a
circle in the centre of the cake. Then you cut the slices up to the central circle.
3. Otherwise you can adopt the method for cutting a square cake.
The Hexagonal cake
Perhaps the easiest way to cut a hexagonal cake is to cut parallel slices from one side then cut each slice to a desirable size.
The Petal cake
The cutting of this cake is takes a bit of working out, but is relatively straight forward once you look at the diagram below. Cut each petal off at the joining point Then slice the petal section either cross-wise or length-wise.
In the example below the remaining section of the cake is in the shape of a pentagon which can be slice as the a hexagon cake would be sliced.
We hope you have found this guide “How To Cut A Wedding Cake” useful. You can print it out for future reference and include it with your wedding planning folder.
Photo © Simon Cataudo