Free Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Wicca in the Kitchen by Scott Cunningham

history of wedding cakes is quite long. These nuptial goodies have their origins in the ancient custom of couples ritually eating sacred foods during the marriage rite. At some times and in some places, a couple needed only to eat or drink food together to be married.
    It seems that the wedding cake is descended from the Roman confarreatio. This special cake was crumbled over the bride’s head during marriage feasts to ensure fertility and plenty during the couple’s life together. 31 The cake was, of course, sweetened with honey. Guests kept pieces of the cake, much as wedding guests of our own time take home slices for “good luck.” 46 In the Victorian era, unmarried English women placed pieces of wedding cake under their pillows for dreams of their future husbands. 82
    Some American Indian tribes made cakes for marriage celebrations. An Iroquois bride, for example, baked a cornmeal cake and gave it to the groom. This was an important part of the ceremony. 31
    The roses so often found decorating wedding cakes today are symbolic wishes for love. They are probably the modern form of the crystallized rose petals and violets that were once placed on the completed cake.
    Such an important part of an important ceremony is still fraught with superstitions: the bride should never make her own wedding cake; neither bride nor groom should taste it until the appropriate time; 46 the bride should keep a piece of the cake (as long as she has it, she’ll have the love of her husband); spice wedding cakes denote a spicy relationship.
    In 1861, the wife of Horace Mann wrote Christianity in the Kitchen , a curious conglomeration of information based on the theory that an unhealthy diet hindered morals. Among her astounding conclusions: since wedding cake is difficult to digest, it is immoral and un-Christian. 104
    Is it just a coincidence that the two substances most often used to flavor wedding cakes, chocolate and vanilla, are both powerful love stimulants?
    Sweetened Breads
    The major difference between cakes and sweetened breads is that the latter usually contain yeast, whereas cakes do not. As soon as the art of leavened bread-making became popular, honey or date syrup was certainly added, along with spices and other ingredients, in order to produce a pleasing variety.
    Sweetened breads are still baked during religious festivals in Europe (especially for Easter) and Mexico (for All Soul’s Day). Certain cakes baked for Halloween and Christmas are quite popular in Scotland, and German stollens are well-known. Pre-Christian Brits baked cakes for spring festivals. One of these breads is still with us today, in a conveniently sanitized form.
    Hot-Cross Buns
    Long before the advent of Christianity, Europeans celebrated the coming of spring with rituals dedicated to the sun and to the earth, which were viewed as symbols of the God and the Goddess. The spring solstice, which falls on a day between March 21 and March 24 each year, was a welcome breath of life after the chilling months of winter . 29, 44, 114
    In these rituals, some of which were dedicated to Eostra (from which our word “Easter” is derived), small, sweetened buns were baked and eaten to encourage the returning fertility of the earth. These ritual breads, created with carefully stored grain and honey, were marked with phallic symbols as visual representations of the sun’s fertilizing influence upon the earth and humans. 29, 44, 114
    As Christianity spread across Europe, the uses of these Pagan breads was altered by the new faith. The phallic symbols, regarded with unnatural horror, were transformed into more “seemly” crosses. ‡‡‡ 125 Hot-cross buns became a part of Easter celebrations and were dedicated, if a bit tardily, to the Christian story of resurrection. The conversion was so complete that hot-cross buns were even given to religious pilgrims traveling through English villages. 119
    Perhaps not curiously,