Hi and thanks for reading!

I'm in Portland, OR and a potential client would like to hire us to make her wedding cake. She recently moved here from the UK and mentioned that she's unfamiliar with the more popular cake flavors here in the US, like red velvet for example. I would really love to create something that will remind her of home since she's new to the States.

UK Bakers: What are the more popular flavors ("flavours" would probably be more appropriate for this post!) that you bake for your brides? If you could share any ideas or recipes, that would be a great help!

Cheers and thanks in advance!!!

Honestly fruit cakes are very popular in the UK for celebration cakes, especially weddings. A lot of times they will take one of the fruit cake tiers and save it for when the couple have a baby and then re-ice it for the baptism (fruitcakes are all terrain and all weather, LOL ).

Another type of cake is called a Victoria Sponge, which is probably similar to a white or yellow cake here in the states. I think in Australia they make something called a mud cake, which sounds absolutely awesome and I'd love to try it.

UK friends, if ya'll have any authentic fruit cake recipes you would like to share bring them on!

Rich fruit cake is very traditional - but it's one of those cakes that you LOVE or HATE.

I'm actually finding that most brides don't want fruit cake - or if they do, they'll have a small tier to cut up to keep Granny / Mum / Auntie Doris happy!

The most popular flavours are vanilla sponge with jam (seedless raspberry jam) and buttercream (our buttercream is different to what I think most US cake makers make... ours is 1 part butter to 2 parts icing sugar [confectioner's sugar?] with a dash of vanilla). As the previous poster said, the sponge is a Victoria sponge - so equal weight of butter, sugar, eggs (cracked weight) and self-raising flour.

I also do a lot of lemon sponge with lemon curd buttercream and chocolate sponge with chocolate buttercream.

(I have a 5 tier choc cake for a wedding this weekend!)

Hope this helps.

Suzanne x

ps: some of the US flavour combinations sound AMAZING!

Thank you both very much for your suggestions! I'll start searching for recipes for the Victoria Sponge, Fruit Cake and Lemon Sponge. They all sound delicious!

I actually lived in London for several months back in 2005 but never quite made it to a wedding while there.

Again, many thanks!

- Sabrina

My pleasure, Sabrina.

If you Google fruit cake, then make sure it's a rich fruit cake or Christmas cake.

General consensus is that if you use the Delia Smith recipe, you really won't go wrong!

Suzanne x

The most popular flavours I've found are fruit cake, chocolate biscuit cake, and orange or lemon madeira cake.

There's are some good recipes on www.odlums.ie

Oh yeah the chocolate biscuit cake!!! I wanted to try it when I heard about it months back.

My best friend lives in Cork, Ireland.

I know Prince William had it at his wedding, but it's very much an Irish thing - I've never been asked to make it and I can't say any of my cake-making acquaintances have ever mentioned it! However, my friend is asked to do it for weddings very frequently!

That's not to say I wouldn't do it... but as the OP asked about typically British cakes, I just thought I'd point it out.

Fruit cake is traditional of england, but these days the only people I know who like it are me and my family! None of my friends do. I tried an Australian mudcake recipe last year, it was really nice but very dense. I don't know if that's because in England we have drier cake than other places? I've heard we do. The most popular cake other than that as said is the Victoria sponge with raspberry jam and buttercream. I now make buttercream with half butter and half shortening and people round here prefer it to what I used to make.

Thanks again for your very helpful suggestions!

The bride was so excited when we mentioned these flavors to her!

Chocolate cake or a Maderia Cake.....(Which I assume is like a pound cake.) It is generally assumed that a Victoria sponge won't really hold fondant very well. Another suggestion is that Nigella Lawson has a great buttermilk cake which I use, and everyone loves here.

Hope this helps.

My cakes are all Victoria sponges (equal weights of butter, sugar, eggs (cracked weight) and flour.

I marzipan AND sugarpaste (fondant) them and they hold it fine.