Wedding cakes of cheese

Here in America, I think wedding cupcakes are the alternative du jour to a full on wedding cake. But is that true?

Photo by Flickr's honto

Because, apparently, wedding cakes made of cheese are taking New Zealand by storm, according to this article. Hat tip to Doris for finding it!

Photo by Flickr's melodrama.ca

From the article:

Canterbury Cheesemongers co-owner Sarah Aspinwall said the wedding cheese was a growing trend overseas and, in New Zealand, was requested mainly by couples returning from their OE.

"I guess some people don't like traditional fruitcakes very much and perhaps have a real passion for cheese," she said.

"It is a delicious thing to have at the end of a big feast, rather than something sweet."

The cake is made by stacking an assortment of round cheeses to resemble a traditional cake, and is served with crackers and fruit.

That appears to be the case with both above -- pretty simple wheels of cheese stacked on top of each other, or in the case of the second picture, four quarters of different cheeses laid out to form one wheel, plus another wheel of cheese on top. But don't think cheese can't be decorated. Oh no.

Photo by Flickr's emilykreed

Hopefully, this couple doesn't mind being on this blog, but they are standing in front of one impressive cheese tower there. Its decorated with all kinds of colorful fruit, what looks like salad greens and bright flowers. However, I wonder how hard it must be to cut the cheese? (Hee, hee, I couldn't help it. Sorry.)

Photo by Flickr's Miss V Lemon

Here's another pretty impressive multi-tiered cake of cheese. I couldn't even tell you what kind of cheeses those were. Those round fruits that are whole and cut look to be figs, plus there are grapes, strawberries and that orange fruit under that extra big thick wheel of cheese. And its all sitting on top of a pretty silver stand.

Photo by Flickr's The Cake Fairy

This cake is a little less like your traditional tiered cake -- it's got a pretty thick base, but appears to be several ingredients down there -- it looks like custard filling the layers of cheese, plus nuts, figs and gerber daisies. Then, a narrow tower of cheese layers topped with what looks like a thick wheel of blue cheese. I may be getting this all wrong, seeing as how I know nothing about cheese. Feel free to correct me in the comments.

Photo by Flickr's rbrwr

This cake of cheese, I think, is my favorite. They used several, visually different wheels of cheese and used very colorful flowers and red cherries to decorate and topped it with Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker. Too cool!