Wedding cake flavor? New Orleanians know exactly what that means (2024)

Wedding cake flavor. Say those words in New Orleans, and those of us who grew up here know exactly what to expect: almond.

The flavor comes from the traditional New Orleans wedding cake: A white, almond-flavored confection, often with a sweetened pineapple filling and butter cream icing.

When I got married 20 years ago, I was living away from home, so planning my wedding from afar. I called and ordered a three-tiered, off-white cake fromSwiss Confectionery with, of course, almond-flavored layers and pineapple filling.

A cake tasting? I didn't need one.

"You knew what it tasted like," said Lauren Moecklin Wightkin, who is part of the fifth generation of the family that opened the Swiss Confectionery in 1921. The shop is now owned by her brother Laurent Moecklin.

I knew because I'd had this combination at many other weddings around town.

"Back in the olden days, back when my grandfather (owned the bakery), when you came to Swiss, you got almond cake with pineapple filling - whether you wanted it or not," Wightkin said. "That's all they made."

Today, Swiss Confectionery makes white almond, vanilla and devil's food cakes, with a variety of fillings, she said.

And, it turns out the rest of the world would most definitely want to taste this flavor-combo first. Many have no idea what New Orleanians are referring to when we say something is "wedding cake" flavor.

Out-of-town bakers got a taste of the New Orleans tradition in 2005, and the levees breeches dispersed New Orleanians all over the country.

"After Katrina, when everyone was scattered, the bakers would call from Memphis and say, 'What do you mean you put almond in your cake? I don't understand.'" Wightkin said.

"When you think about it, it doesn't sound appealing. Try telling someone from Chicago, almond flavored with pineapple and they're like," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"I can definitely attest to that because I was not familiar with this," said Melissa Samuels of Melissa's Fine Pastries in New Orleans, who is from Minnesota. "When I first moved to New Orleans, I was like, 'What is a wedding cake petit four at Gambino's and what is a wedding cake snowball?"

"I don't happen to like that flavor, honestly," she said. "When I first started my business, I didn't even have it on my menu. People were like, 'Don't you just make wedding cake?' So, now it is on the menu and it is quite popular."

Many almond-flavored wedding cake recipes can be found on the Internet and white or yellow cakes with vanilla or almond flavor are popular choices around the world for wedding cakes.

In New Orleans, however, the almond cake ranks as one of the most popular choices for traditionalnuptial confections, local bakers say. Also, the term "wedding cake flavor" is applied to other things, such as petit fours and birthday cakes, said Jackie Sue Scelfo, co-owner of Gambino's Bakery, with her husband, Sam.

Gambino's website lists an yellow "Almond Wedding" layer cake as "a mouth watering Gambino original and has been famous in New Orleans for 65 years. The most popular flavor cake of our Louisiana birthday celebrations."

Scelfo and Liz Williams, director of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, couldn't pinpoint exactly where the tradition came from, but both think it may have arrived with the influx ofSicilians in New Orleans. Sicilians use almond frequently in their sweets and candy-covered almonds are handed out at weddings.

New Orleans is growing a place for destination wedding, meaning sometimes Crescent City customs collide with out-of-towners' expectations.

"If people from New Orleans come and they're wanting the wedding cake flavor, you know it's going to be almond cake," said pastry chef Deborah Heyd of Teddy's Cafe in the Roosevelt, who makes cakes for New Orleans brides and for the growing number of couples who are making the city the site of a destination wedding.

Out-of-towners have no expectation of a specific flavor tied to wedding cake, she said.

"People around the country have no idea what you are even talking about when you say something is 'wedding cake' flavor," said Beth Biundo of Beth Biundo Sweets.

And, in mixed marriages -- where one half of the couple hails from another city or state -- this can cause a pause in the planning.

"If one is local and the other is fromout of town, one family assumes that they will have (an almond cake) and the out-of-towners are confused about why that's the way it has to be," Biundo said.

Still, even non-New Orleanians sometimes go with it, she said.

"People like it, but they don't have the assumption that a wedding cake will be that flavor," said Biundo, who offers a "traditional almond vanilla wedding cake with vanilla buttercream." (She also makes an intriguing-sounding almond brown butter cake.)

Even among New Orleanians, almond, however, is no longer a given. The sky is the limit for flavors, styles and colors of cakes. Area bakers attribute that to the proliferation of the Internet and social media idea sources, such as Pinterest and Instagram, with their gorgeous photos of multi-flavored cakes.

Katie Franklin, a New Orleanian who married her husband Andy Franklin on April 1 at Pat O's on the River, tried three different bakeries' cakes before selecting Swiss Confectionery's best-seller.

"I was surprised that I liked it," she said "I was thinking that almond with pineapple would be horrific, but it's really good.

"It was the classic: A three-tiered white cake with pineapple filling. In the end, we were just like this simple cake is the best. It's something everyone will like -- not too out there.

Katie's mom, who went along on the tastings, urged them to at least try the traditional cake: "She was rooting for the white cake with pineapple."