A double barrel, robin’s egg blue vintage cake
New June, a Philadelphia bakery specializing in vintage cakes, has perfected the art of Victorian English Lambeth piping. Pictures of this robin egg blue cake caught my eye. “I would say more than 50% [of our wedding requests] are for an all-white, really classic cake, sometimes with cherries,” explains founder Noelle Blizzard,, but she’s most excited to work more with color. Noelle made this alluring blue cake for a wedding at the iconic TWA hotel at JFK International Airport in New York City.
The bride, stylist Lauren Martin, incorporated the blue throughout the day. “She had a few different looks; it was incorporated into her shoes at one moment, and one of her after-party dresses,” Noelle recalls. “There was robin egg blue ribbon incorporated into table settings.” The color also extended to the florals (blue hydrangeas) and blue paper airplane seating cards.
As for the structure of the cake, the couple opted for a double barrel, a less traditional style and build than a typical vintage tier cake. “All at once, it’s that Wilton-era American, but also very classic Victorian English Lambeth style,” adds Noelle. Finished with a family heirloom topper, Noelle baked a cookies-and-tahini cake and alternated chocolate devil’s food cake with chocolate-chip-olive-oil sour cream. The filling was cookies-and-marscapone whipped cream with tahini caramel, and a buttery graham cracker crumble, iced with a simple vanilla bean Swiss buttercream.
2024 wedding cake trends
As for cakes that will trend in the wedding season to come, the bakers agreed that while coquettish bows won’t have staying power in the wedding landscape, sheet cakes and vintage-style cakes likely will. What else is to come? Swans, long cakes, and an emphasis on experimental flavors.
Swans
A symbol of eternal love, swans have made their debut with Lexie’s midcentury jelly cake in early 2024. Noelle also notes that they’ve already been commissioned for cakes with meringue swans for the coming season. Swans famously mate for life, make a heart shape with their necks when facing each other, and represent pure romance. Is 2024 the year of the swan cake?
Long cakes
“I think people really like to see scale in a different way—traditionally how you see a wedding cake, the scale goes up vertically, so I think it’s kind of relatively a new thing to see scale horizontally,” says Mina Park. Mina notes that Laila Gohar was doing this several years ago, but she sees this interest in scale building now. Aimee similarly pointed out the prevalence of “huge, really long sheet cakes,” noting that she wants to get people together around an undecorated one and having a group activity of decorating the cake.
