Black Wedding Cake Ideas


Black wedding cakes are an alternative from the normal white ones, and they’re a striking choice for a moody and romantic wedding or a spooky Halloween wedding.

There are some things about black wedding cakes that every bride should consider, though, so read on to see the important things that you need to keep in mind when you have a black cake!


Romantic Wedding Cakes For Dark Wedding Theme

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What to consider before you choose a black wedding cake.

The most important thing to remember is that black buttercream takes A LOT of food coloring. That means that anything the icing touches, including your mouth, and potentially your face and wedding gown if your fiancé is going to smash cake in your face, is going to get stained.

The way to avoid this is to use black fondant. It will still leave some food coloring stains in people’s mouths if they eat it, but it’s not going to be as bad as buttercream.

Black food coloring can also taste bitter, and it can make the icing grainy for some reason. I never had a fantastic experience with black buttercream, so I personally preferred to use the minimum of that.

If I used black on a cake, black fondant was a better choice for covering cakes and creating ribbons and other types of decorations.

I can’t emphasize this enough…If you have a fiancé who’s going to rub cake in your face (please don’t do that) then you DO NOT want to have colored buttercream on your cake. It will ruin you.



Halloween wedding cake.

Halloween wedding cake

I’ll start with this Halloween wedding cake, which DID have black buttercream on it. This couple get married on Halloween and it was a costume party if I remember correctly, so if one of them ended up with black icing on themselves, it was probably okay.

To read about making black buttercream, click here for an article about that.


Black fondant fringe.

black fringe cake

This black fringe fondant cake is more of a dark, romantic wedding cake.

The gold-painted jewels on the edges of the tiers gave it a little bling that also stayed with the black theme.



Black feather cake.

black feather cake

This small wedding cake with black fondant feathers had an iridescent shine to it. I dusted it with colorful luster dusts to make the fondant reflect the light in different shades of green and blue.

You can see how I did it in this article.


Black buttercream and fondant.

stencil wedding cake black and red

This cake had a combination of black buttercream stenciled onto two tiers, and black fondant on the middle tier.

This is a good way to spread the black buttercream out and not put a thick coat on any of the tiers.


Wedding

Black fondant shiny effect cake.

black wedding cake

This small wedding cake had black fondant that had been brushed with black petal dust with a bit of a sheen to it. It gave the cake a little bit of what wasn’t’ really a texture, but just a depth of black, if that makes sense.

I added a piped edge of black buttercream to the tiers, which was another way to minimize the black buttercream.

You can see black petal dust and luster dust on Amazon here: Black dusting powder. (#ad)


Black fondant details.

black and pink piping cake

Another way to use black on a cake is to use black fondant details instead of a full covering of black.

This cake had black fondant details with piped pink overpiping, which gave it a feminine touch.


Black stripes wedding cake.

stripey cake wedding black and white

This wedding cake had black fondant stripes applied in diagonal patterns with orange gumpaste flowers for a pop of color.



Black buttercream stencils.

black and white damask wedding cake with bow topper

This wedding cake had black buttercream stenciling on white buttercream, and white fondant pearls at the base of the tiers.

This one had a white gumpaste bow topper, which made it more of a pretty cake, but if you added red roses the black stenciling would make it have a much more gothic vibe.


To see more black and white wedding cakes, click here.


Black buttercream wedding cake.

black wedding cake

This tall black buttercream wedding cake is a good example of how black food coloring can (for some unknown reason) make the icing look a little grainy. I think it’s just the sheer amount of food coloring that you have to use to get that dark color.

I preferred to work with black fondant (this is a cake made by a friend) and I don’t know that I would have agreed to use this much black icing.

If I did, there’s a way to minimize the amount of black that you have to use, so read about that here.


Piped black lace.

black buttercream piped lace wedding cake

This cake had black piped lace patterns based on the bride’s wedding dress on it. I liked this as a way to make a black cake because it did give you the dark color, but it minimizes the amount of food coloring at the same time.


Black cakes can be romantic, spooky, or moody, but they’re always fun and unexpected for an offbeat wedding.


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