Wedding Cake

December 26

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (December 26, 1774).

“Bride and Christening Cakes.”

Despite the distresses that Boston experienced in the fall and winter of 1774 because of the Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, and the Quartering Act, Thomas Selby, a “Pastry and Kitchen Cook, from London,” advertised that he “carries on his Business as usual” and declared to his “Friends and Customers” that he “hopes for the Continuance of their Favours, as he is determined to spare neither Pain nor Expence to merit them.”  Apparently, he did not intend to discriminate when it came to prospective customers since he also confided that the “Gentlemen of the Army and Navy who will be pleased to favour him with their Custom, may depend on having their Orders well executed.”  Selby chose to look beyond politics, figuring that a customer was a customer during hard times.  Notably, he advertised in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy, known for its more sympathetic stance toward the government than other newspapers published by Patriot printers.  He also advised “Country Shopkeepers” that he would make a “good Allowance” for those who submitted orders for “Candied Almonds and Sugar-Plumbs of all sorts.”  In other words, he gave discounts for purchasing in volume to retailers outside the city.

Selby filled many kinds of orders at his “Pastry and Jelly Shop.”  He prepared and sold “Pastry and Confectionary, cheaper than can be made in private Families,” making it smart and economical to engage his services.  He offered the eighteenth-century version of take-out food, advertising “Dinners drest” at his shop, and catered functions for his clients, highlighting “Entertainments prepared.”  In addition, he baked and decorated cakes for special events: “Bride and Christening Cakes made, and ornamented in the genteelest Manner.”  Bakers occasionally advertised such items.  In November 1773, for instance, Frederick Kreitner marketed “Wedding-Cakes” among the many “Sorts of Confections” that he made in Charleston.  The term “bride cake” was more widely used in England and America, including in Selby’s advertisement.  Such cakes contained candied fruits, symbolizing fertility and prosperity.  At about the time that Selby advertised his bride cake, icing became an essential element, as Carol Wilson explains in “Wedding Cake: A Slice of History.”  Selby suggested that his “Bride and Christening Cakes” featured elaborate decorations to help commemorate the occasions.  Even as the imperial crisis intensified, some colonizers paused to mark important milestones, including weddings and baptisms, and incorporated special foods into those observances.

November 23

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (November 23, 1773).

“Wedding-Cakes.”

Frederick Kreitner made and sold sweet treats at his “CONFECTIONARY” in Charleston in the early 1770s.  In an advertisement in the November 23, 1773, edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, he expressed “his most grateful Thanks to the Gentlemen and Ladies, who have favoured him with their Custom” and solicited the patronage of new and returning customers.  The confectioner listed several of the items he made and sold, including macaroons, “Tea-Cakes of all Kinds, Sugar-Plumbs, [and] preserved Pine-Apples, Oranges, Strawberries, Ginger, Lemons, and Almonds.”  Kreitner also advertised that he sold “Wedding-Cakes.”

What distinguished a wedding cake from other cakes in colonial Charleston?  In “Wedding Cake: A Slice of History,” Carol Wilson examines a variety of traditions, including English traditions that colonizers brought with them to North America.  According to Wilson, “bride cake, the predecessor of the modern wedding cake,” replaced bride pie in the seventeenth century.  “Fruited cakes, as symbols of fertility and prosperity, gradually became the centerpieces for weddings.”  However, a “much less costly bride cake took the simpler form of two large rounds of shortcrust pastry sandwiched together with currants and sprinkled with sugar on the top.”  This simple type of cake “could easily be cooked on a bakestone on the hearth.”  Wilson also reports, “Bride cake covered with white icing first appeared sometime in the seventeenth century.”  In 1769, Elizabeth Raffald, known for the recipes and other household hints she published in England, “was the first to offer the combination of bride cake, almond cake, and royal icing.”  In 1773, Raffald published the third edition of The Experienced English Housekeeper, for the Use and Ease of Ladies, Housekeepers, Cooks.  It contained nearly nine-hundred recipes, including instructions “To make a BRIDE CAKE,” “To make ALMOND-ICEING for the BRIDE CAKE,” and “To make SUGAR ICEING for the BRIDE CAKE.”  Raffald considered these recipes so important that she placed them first in chapter 11, following and introduction that offered “Observations upon CAKES.”

Prospective customers in Charleston had expectations about what distinguished wedding cakes from “Tea-Cakes” and other cakes that Kreitner made and sold.  By including wedding cakes among the confections in his advertisement, Kreitner aided in further diffusing traditions associated with new marriages and presented himself as an authority who could assist customers who wished to adhere to contemporary fashions and rituals.