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WEDDING (CHEESE) CAKES
We have
had many enquiries regarding cheese wedding cakes, including one from
the Richard and Judy television show who wanted to feature such a cake.
There are many permutations of cheeses in terms of size and cost; for
instance, we have supplied cheese wedding cakes costing between £150 and
£350 (prices vary according to whether you use whole cheeses or half
cheeses). Remember too that you have to consider how many guests are
attending and we usually allow 100g (three ounce) per person after a
meal or a little more if it is just cheese and wine.
Almost
every whole cheese comes in different sizes and, of course, people have
different preferences for particular cheeses. In any case, one should
really mix soft cheese, firm cheese, and blue cheese to give a variety.
When we started advising the first customer, they actually made
cardboard models of whole cheeses to give themselves an idea of the
visual look of the cake. We can only give various sizes and rough prices
for whole cheeses but, of course, customers can ask for whole cheeses to
be split horizontally. A whole Stilton, for example, is approximately 22
cm high and 21 cm in diameter, so it is a tall cheese; half a Stilton
i.e. 11 cm high and 21 cm in diameter may be more appropriate to stack
on other cheeses. There is an added complication that whole Cheddars are
not usually supplied to retailers and wholesalers in the form of a whole
cheese (they usually come quartered) but we can obtain them although we
require some advance notice to
order it from the maker. Most other cheeses, though, do come in to us in
the form of whole cheeses.
We
learned from our second customer that the supports for iced cakes can be
obtained as hollow columns so this customer put dowels through the
supports, added wooden discs and made the cake look more like a
traditional iced cake. This also protected soft cheeses from collapsing
under the weight of hard cheeses. Really there are no hard and fast
rules; some customers just want something very simple and wish to stack
one cheese on top of the other. You really have to decide what cheeses
you want and how you are going to present them.
Below are
some sizes of whole cheeses together with an approximate cost (cheeses
vary in weight and prices are based on those of May 2003):
EXTRA
MATURE CHEDDAR: diameter 34
cm; height 20 cm; weight 22 kilos; cost £281.60 (remember you may only
require a half cheese or a third cheese cut horizontally)
DOUBLE GLOUCESTER: diameter 25 cm; height 7.5 cm; weight 3.9 kilos; cost £65
DOUBLE GLOUCESTER: diameter 25 cm; height 7.5 cm; weight 3.9 kilos; cost £65
STILTON: diameter 21
cm; height 22 cm; weight 9 kilos; cost £115.20
1 KILO FRENCH BRIE:
diameter 20 cm; height 2.5 cm; weight 1 kilo; cost £7.50
CORNISH BRIE: diameter
20 cm; height 3 cm; weight 0.8 kilo; cost £11.60
CAMBOZOLA: diameter 24
cm; height 5 cm; weight 2.2 kilos; cost £38.72
DEVON OKE: diameter 20
cm; height 12 cm; weight 5 kilos; cost £75.00
CASHEL BLUE: diameter
14 cm; height 10 cm; weight 1.5 kilos; cost £20.70
VIGNOTTE: diameter 19
cm; height 8 cm; weight 2.5 kilos; cost £44.00
WENSLEYDALE: diameter
18 cm; height 10 cm; weight 2.5 kilos; cost £28.00
RED LEICESTER:
diameter 24 cm; height 13 cm; weight 7 kilos; cost £89.60
CORNISH YARG: diameter
25 cm; height 6 cm; weight 3.5 kilos; cost £59.15
SINGLE GLOUCESTER:
diameter 25 cm; height 7.5 cm; weight 3.9 kilos; cost £65
Descriptions of each of these cheeses can be found on our web site.
We also
have many small individual cheeses for the very top of the cake which
are under 10 cm in diameter and weigh from 200g to 350g.
Please
add on a postage charge of £6.50, or alternatively we will give you a
10% discount (and obviously there will be no postage charge!) if you
collect from our shop in Gloucestershire. We require a couple of weeks' notice to make sure
we can obtain the exact cheeses you require.
The
photograph above is of one of the cakes which was made of Double
Gloucester, Cambozola, Menallack, Coulommiers, and Montagnard. As far as
we can remember, this cost about £250. The cake below is made from a
half Cheddar, half Stilton and Vignottes.
If you finally decide that a cake made from cheese is not suitable, we can always supply a selection of cheeses for a traditional cheese board - you will get much better quality cheeses than most caterers/hotels supply, and at a competitive price. A hotel or restaurant will usually have large refrigeration facilities so we can deliver a couple of days before the wedding, but please check with them first!
The wedding 'cheese' cake below is made up from 2x Mild Bries on the bottom, 1 x Cambozola (a blue brie), a Vignotte, a Coulommiers and a Shipton Moyne. This customer only wanted white-rinded cheeses and wanted to feed 110 guests (so this cake is about 11kgs). The cost for this cake (May 2004) is about £155 plus £6.50 postage (or if collecting from our shop, no postage and ten percent discount - therefore £140. The picture shows the cheeses still wrapped as this was a mock-up - so imagine the wrappings being taken off and perhaps pillars or boards separating the cheeses.
Below are more 'cakes' we have supplied.
If you finally decide that a cake made from cheese is not suitable, we can always supply a selection of cheeses for a traditional cheese board - you will get much better quality cheeses than most caterers/hotels supply, and at a competitive price. A hotel or restaurant will usually have large refrigeration facilities so we can deliver a couple of days before the wedding, but please check with them first!
The wedding 'cheese' cake below is made up from 2x Mild Bries on the bottom, 1 x Cambozola (a blue brie), a Vignotte, a Coulommiers and a Shipton Moyne. This customer only wanted white-rinded cheeses and wanted to feed 110 guests (so this cake is about 11kgs). The cost for this cake (May 2004) is about £155 plus £6.50 postage (or if collecting from our shop, no postage and ten percent discount - therefore £140. The picture shows the cheeses still wrapped as this was a mock-up - so imagine the wrappings being taken off and perhaps pillars or boards separating the cheeses.
Below are more 'cakes' we have supplied.
