Wedding Cakes

[agzg]

Originally Posted by honeychile

For the uninitiated, in regards to the Cookie Table: (from Chris Fennimore, of WQED)

The Cookie Connection
"The cookie table is a local wedding tradition worth baking for. Flour, sugar and butter have been disappearing from grocery shelves at an alarming rate over the past few weeks. Like milk and toilet paper on the eve of a winter storm, vanilla extract and chocolate morsels have to be restocked regularly. Are people preparing for some sort of calamity? No, they're just stockpiling cookies for the season of weddings, graduation parties, anniversaries and other family gatherings that seem to hit a peak in June.

I never met a food tradition I didn't like, and the Pittsburgh cookie table is one that came as a welcome surprise to this transplant from Brooklyn, N.Y. The quantity and quality of the cookie assortments at these functions are a source of endless discussion and great family pride. I recently read about one event where there were 800 dozen cookies! You may have heard of even more extravagant displays.

No one seems to know where or how this tasty tradition began, but here are two recipes from my mother's repertoire to add to the table." (He followed with a recipe for pizelles and a tartlet.)

Bringing cookies to a wedding is showing your affection to the bride and groom. I've been to showers where a list was sent around to see if you could make cookies, what type, how many, etc. In the Western PA area, every Cookie Table must have pizelles, mini ladylocks, pecan tassies, thumbprints, mini cheesecakes, those (insert nationality here) Wedding Cakes, and some "kid cookies" (peanut butter, chocolate chips, etc). Ohio ones have to include Buckeyes, too. When you book your caterer, they usually tell you whether or not they will "tray the cookies" - put them on display in a pleasing manner. Truly great Cookie Tables not only have the one main table, but a plate on each table.

I was in a wedding for a friend who asked people to bake cookies for her. I was in such a frenzy to get there (her wedding was in Zilly/Wexford, and I lived in Squirrel Hill at the time) for the rehearsal dinner (of course I was running late) that I forgot to take my M&M cookies to her. Her tables, though, were freaking awesome. They took up an ENTIRE corner of the huge ballroom, and they were a major hit! She had both cookie and candy tables, and if I remember correctly everything was mixed in together. Beyond just having plates for people to put the stuff on, they created little doggie bags for people to take home with them.

My sister-in-law is from Western PA, too, and while my family lives in Western NY, my brother and sister-in-law had a candy/cookie table at their wedding, too. Believe me, my town had never seen anything like it and I think the tradition spread, because a cousin got married in the same time and she insisted on a cookie table, too!