A piece of wedding cake from Taiwan
Taiwan has a lot of traditional family run businesses scattered around the rural areas, and often I would see them in the villages after I go on hikes. During one of my such hikes, we passed by bakery store that specialises in wedding cakes with a modern twist.
| Here's the traditional store | And here's the modern twist |
|---|---|
 |  |
Chinese wedding cakes differ from western ones in that we don't have one big center piece on display at the wedding. We have small boxes instead. Traditionally, before the wedding, the groom's family will buy some wedding cakes and deliver them to the bride's family. This will be given out to the guests when the bride's family delivers the invitations. Therefore, only guests of the brides family will receive the wedding cakes, those from the groom's side won't get any.
The tl:dr version is that many years ago a war lord in China told another war lord he was going to let his sister marry him. It wasn't supposed to be real, it was just a cunning plan for him to take control of the latter's land and power. When the second war lord found out about the cunning plan, he decided to make it real by announcing it to all the villagers and giving out cakes so the first war lord had no option but to let his sister marry him. That then became a tradition whereby the brides's family would give out cakes to announce their daughter was getting married.
This particular bakery is called Yung An, I don't believe they're nationally famous or anything, just a random one who's been around in the area since the 70s. Family run business is still a big thing in Taiwan and many second or third generations are happy to take over the family business due to a sense of fillial piety. In order to keep up with the times and keep the business going, the younger generation will often modernise the brand whilst keeping the heritage of the product. I think this is what has happened here.
Their logo is the cartoon character of a pair of newlyweds, in red of course as red is the lucky colour for the Chinese. On the newlyweds head you'll notice a cross and a line at the bottom.
This is the top part of the traditional double happiness symbol (Source Wikpedia) for wedding, and they have merged it with the cartoon character to make the logo. Very creative!
And if that wasn't enough, the brand extends from behind the counter all the way along the ceiling back out towards the front entrance, creating a very modern fun feel, just like a wedding should be. You can't miss it no matter where you are in the shop.
In my opinion, the gem in the shop is it's packaging. These are the boxes of cakes that will be given out to the bride's guests. The design is beautiful and has some of the traditional features such as a dominant red for luck and specks of gold for extravagance. The font for the brand name is in chinese calligraphy, and there are some traditional patterns and flowers etc. I think they look very elegant as a gift particularly to celebrate a wedding.
For those who prefer an even more modern twist there are these packaging with the cartoon character. And they come in either a carrier bag packaging or a gift box and contains different quantities of cakes.
And there's even this design of a bride with a beautiful bouquet. However, I thnk her headwear isn't very "weddingy"!!
The locals in this area are Hakka people, Hakka being one of the main Chinese dialects. They have their own customs and traditions, and one of them are some beautiful Hakka style floral prints. This is transposed to these Hakka style packaging, which is designed like the front of a female's garment. I think this i a lovely nod to the Hakka culture blended with the bride.
All the different boxes I just showed you contains different flavour cakes. Some of the traditional flavour are red bean paste, taro, green bean paste, a savoury one made of pork floss (I could never understand this one), black sesame, pineapple etc. There was plenty available for customers to sample, perfect for a post hike/pre dinner light snack!!
I hope you enjoyed reading about traditional wedding cakes from Taiwan. Do you have any wedding cakes in your country and what are they like?
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Thank you. I love those cakes. There are so many varieties that it leads to more excitement where you hear someone is getting married. For me, it’s almost disappointing when people choose western cookies instead- but my family likes them more.
Probably western cookies are more modern and 'cool', and young couples find the traditional cakes a bit boring despite the modernised packing. I only like some of the traditional flavours, like red bean and taro, whereas the savoury ones are always a mystery to me. Cakes should be sweet!!!
Those are pretty cute. Just like wedding looks in the west, there's a dual traditional but young and fresh vibe to everything. The typical western wedding palettes are the pastel version of some very traditional colours.
I think they've done well with the packaging and unlike some Taiwanese revamped brands haven't overdone the cuteness cartoon which can often make brands look too silly and childish.
I love the care and details in all these amazing cakes! I have a couple of friends that do cakes and they would love this! Way to show us how it's done!
Maybe they can combine these designs with their own make something awesomely cool!!
This is highly discriminative, call for action is needed here! Tradition must be changed, correct the wrong immediately! Cake for everyone!
Those boxes are beautiful, I hope the cake is even better.
Here wedding cakes are the usual and people are competing with each other, it's like who has the biggest and the most decorated cake. Like in life in general. And of course there are normal couples too, who are choosing a normal wedding cake 🎂 and that's all.
You only get one wedding (normally) so why not go big, once in a lifetime opportunity!!!
BTw, I added the origins about why only the bride's guest gets cakes in the post, if you're interested
That's an interesting tradition, especially how only the brides side gets the cakes. I wonder how it originated like that or why?
The flavors sound interesting. Do they generally taste good? I know that seems like an obvious question (obviously they taste good why else would they sell them!?) but sometimes i feel like certain cakes are more about the idea then anything else. Generic, Store bought Christmas fruit cake is like that to me. At least the stuff in Canada. You see it everywhere in stores but I can't see how anyone can like that hahaha. I'm always like what the heck are the green jelly things supposed to be!?
I'm sure homemade versions and good quality versions are good.
Anyway, is the wedding cake like that - more for the show and tradition or is it actually good to eat?
Good question, I had to do a digging around on that myself
The tl:dr version is that many years ago a war lord in China told another war lord he was going to let his sister marry him. It wasn't supposed to be real, it was just a cunning plan for him to take control of the latter's land and power. When the second war lord found out about the cunning plan, he decided to make it real by announcing it to all the villagers and giving out cakes so the first war lord had no option but to let his sister marry him. That then became a tradition whereby the brides's family would give out cakes to announce their daughter was getting married.
Yeah, Christmas cakes are another one that is popular but doesn't taste nice either. I remember I made one at school when I was younger, and it took many weeks to make as well. When it was done, and I took it home, no one wanted to eat it and I ended up gifting it to the old lady next door. Think she was pretty pleased with it!!!
That's actually a really interesting explanation and it makes a lot of sense too. It sort of turns the proposal into a social contract. Thanks for tracking that down :)
I freaking love cake, so I don't think I could handle this at all! Those boxes are pretty sweet. My wife and I ended up getting our wedding cake for free. They were supposed to make it square but they accidentally made it round. They ended up not charging us for it.
An extra wedding present!!! How nice!! But how could they get that wrong? Hopefully they didn't get the decorations wrong!!!
No, the decorations were right. It was still beautiful and it tasted great. The lady that did it was a little flakey.
I love sun cakes and pineapple tarts. They have so many varieties at the Taipei Main Station. If they accept custom orders, I'll change the pork floss to mushroom floss. Need not wait until a wedding to savor them 😂
I miss the pinapple cakes, they are so nice. Mushroom floss? That's a thought. You a vegetarian?
Taiwan produces delicious mushroom floss. Yes, it's made just like meat floss and tastes a lot like meat too. It will be unique to be introduced into pastries. Everyone, vegetarian, Muslim or not can eat them without worry.
Thanks for the peek inside Taiwan wedding tradition. Well done!
so colourful, the far east, is always so vivid and a joy to visit. i think we need a divorce cake too !!!!!
lol!! Divorce cake, you'd hope you won't ever need to buy that, but then I hear some people do divorce parties in England!!!
parties!!Now that's a first.
Well, I guess I would not want to be a guest on the groom's side 😏 An interesting tradition, tbh.
But I do quite like the design of the packaging. If I would to receive it, it would make me feel veeery valued. 😀
Oh wow. We have something similar to the delivery of cake. We usually do any desserts/sweets and during early childhood we used to gobble up some before it goes into the packing. 😂
I really loved the packaging pattern here with relation to culture. Similar to what we use as in relation to cultural here and Red is the first choice here as well.
But, those modern packaging looks elegant. And, the modern touch looks to really drive in the youngsters as well. Loved the idea 💫
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Pauline, what a fun cultural lesson. Thanks. Glad @leaky20 asked about who got the cakes and why. That was very interesting. And those characters are so cute! All the packaging is so beautiful.
I am a sucker for any type of cakes and these ones I haven't tried we have a Taiwanese cake shop here I must pop in and indulge myself 😁
Try the pinapple ones if they have any, they're most famous!
Thank you @livinguktaiwan I will look out for that one.
@livinguktaiwan, may I contact you in Discord/Twitter somehowe?
p.s. I hope you are doing well
這家的包裝真的挺傳統的。在國外，這種喜餅受歡迎嗎？
可能要看口味，像鹹的我也不能接受😁
Wow I had never heard that about the grooms friends and family not being able to eat the cake. I guess I need to focus on making female friends from Taiwan so I can be on the cake eating side.
Thanks for posting in Cross Culture, pleasure to see you pop in here 😸😸
Red color dominates the colors in the atmosphere. I think red identical to the Chinese tradition.