Cheese Wedding Cakes
What is a Cheese Wedding Cake?
Cheese Wedding Cakes have become a regular feature of the wedding reception over the last few years. Often used as a replacement to traditional wedding cake, and more frequently as an additional cake to add an exciting focal point at the reception.
The name is slightly misleading in that no cake is used, rather a wedding cake effect is created by layering a number of cheeses which are typically dressed in fruit or flowers to create a beautiful “Cheese Wedding Cake”. A Cheese Wedding Cake is also sometimes described as a Cake of Cheese, Cheese Tower or Tower of Cheese.
Most wedding receptions will have a cheese course of some sort; the cheese wedding cake simply creates a feature out of the cheeses rather than having them pre-cut by caterers. There is limited, if any, additional cost in having the cheeses in the form of a cake over having them pre-cut, as by ordering whole cheeses we are able to offer a discount which typically will cover the costs of any additional dressing you may wish to adorn the cake with.
How do I order a Cheese Wedding Cake?
If you would like a quote for a cheese wedding cake just provide us with answers to the questions bellow. We will provide you with a quote, background information on the suggested cheeses, a diagarm of the suggested cheese weddinng cake and a copy of our terms and conditons :-
Delivery Options?
Cheese Wedding Cakes can be delivered by hand within the Bristol area or sent via courier throughout the UK.
Which Venues do we supply to?
As a leading supplier of Cheese Wedding Cakes we are often asked which venues we work with within Bristol and the surrounding area. We have supplied to most venues at some point and are always happy to work with new venues, large and small.
We have put together a seperate page detailing those wedding venues we recommend and that we supply cheese wedding cakes to regularly.
Is it possible to have a cake of cheese for other events too?
Absolutely.
Theses cakes have become popular for weddings, hence the name, but there is absolutely nothing stopping you from having one for a birthday, anniversary or any other event. We've recently created several cakes of cheese for birthday parties.
The cake opposite is a Cheese Birthday Cake we put to together for one of our customers.
How much will a cheese cake cost?
We take a tailored approach to creating your cake. We seek to find out what your preferences are, guest numbers, etc and give you a bespoke cake that we believe will exactly meet your requirements. We do not charge for this service.
As a typical indication of likely cost, we recommend basing the sizing of the cake on 100g of cheese per person. A few people love cheese and will eat more but this is typically compensated by those that don’t eat cheese at all.
The price of different cheeses varies greatly depending on age, milk type, scarcity and production methods, however on average it generally works out to be £2 to £2.20 per 100g and it’s the basis on which it’s possible to give an indicative price for a cheese wedding cake. So based on having 100 people at the wedding we suggest budgeting for £200 to £220 for the cheese.
If the cheese wedding cake replaces the traditional wedding cake completely it is worth adding a further 25% to the above.
We will provide an exact price once we have jointly agreed the list and volume of cheeses. The pricing of our cheese wedding cakes is based on our standard shop price, less a 10% discount. We do not charge for the consultancy on the cake, so this is all you will pay. Our pricing is based on you picking up the cheeses from the shop (we are open 7 days a week) and on the supply of the cheeses not on dressing of the cake. Once the deposit is paid the prices remain fixed.
Pictures of Cheese Wedding Cakes
We've added a seperate gallery of some of the cheese towers we have helped specified for brides and grooms over the last few years.
If we have provided cheese for your wedding or other event we’d love to see pictures and add them to our gallery.
Classic Cheese Wedding Cakes
As mentioned we generally take a tailored approach to creating your cake, however we have made so many over the years that we have a few favourites that you may like to consider.
The Louise
This cake is designed for 75 people, weighs 7.5kg and costs £180.
We used half a brie to reduce the size but provide the box so the effect of a whole brie is achieved.
| Cheese | Diameter (cm) |
Weight (kg) |
White Nancy |
10 |
0.5 |
Godminster Organic Cheddar |
16 |
2 |
Cornish Yarg |
26 |
3.3 |
Brie De Meaux |
37 |
1.7 |
The Maite
This cake is great for 100 people, weighs just over 11kg and costs £240.
| Cheese | Diameter (cm) |
Weight (kg) |
White Nancy |
10 |
0.5 |
Quickes Traditional Cheddar |
16.5 |
2 |
Shropshire Blue |
21.5 |
2 |
Cornish Yarg |
26 |
3.3 |
| Brie De Meaux | 37 |
3.3 |
The Becca
This cake is designed for 150 people and has 7 layers. The cake shown weighs just under 15.5kg and costs £330.
| Cheese | Diameter (cm) |
Weight (kg) |
Coeur Neufchatel |
10 |
0.2 x 3 |
Reblochon |
14 |
0.5 |
Wigmore |
17 |
0.725 |
Shropshire Blue |
21.5 |
4 |
Cornish Yarg |
26 |
3.3 |
Montgomery Cheddar |
34 |
3 |
Brie De Meaux |
37 |
3.3 |
What cheese can we use in our Tower of Cheese?
It’s important when choosing the cheese to get a good range (i.e. hard, soft and blue) as well as at least one non Cow’s milk cheese in the mix (i.e. Goat or Ewe’s milk) if possible.
The aesthetics of the cake are important, so getting an increasing diameter of cheeses and variation of colours is key in creating a visually impressive cheese wedding cake. Having very similar size cheeses will create a chimney of cheese, which doesn’t look as good (it’s also harder to dress with fruit). This is an area that a lot of people fall down on as it is not obvious from a cheese counter how large the cheeses are as whole or partial truckles . We can help on this as we will only use cheeses where we know the dimensions and weight.
In reality most cheeses can be used, however soft cheeses should only be used higher up the stack. Although a good French Brie works well as a base layer as long as it remains in its box.
With softer cheeses it’s important to take into account how long the cheese will be at room temperature, particularly in the summer.
Often people play safe and want Cheddar, here the issue can be size, in that many types of cheddar are 26KG each (enough to server 260 on its own!). However even here we have trimmed traditional farmhouse cheddars, such as the excellent Montgomery into half kilo quarters in the past and then formed them back into a circle. Once the cake is dressed with fruit the joins are largely hidden. So much is possible.
What is the best way to display the cheese tower?
We find a simple black slate works well as the base for the cake.
Whole wheels of cheese don’t lend themselves to a traditional cheese knife, so we always recommend that once the bride and groom have posed for photos, the wheels of cheese be put on individual boards and cut in half, at least for the larger layers (so have a large knife or cheese cutter available). Once they are in half people can either help themselves if it is a buffet or the cheese can be plated up if it is part of a formal meal.
How to dress Cheese Wedding Cakes?
One option that often gets over-looked is to simply leave it undressed. By picking the right cheeses in the first place the cake will look beautiful without dressing.
If there is a colour theme for the wedding you may wish to have this represented with the cake, for example the same flowers or ribbons as the bridesmaids, etc.
We find the most popular method is to dress the cake with fruit. This can be anything from a few strategically placed grapes right through to a tower of cascading fruit pinned in place with cocktail sticks. Many fruits go well with cheese, and any that you use to adorn the cake should take this into account. We’d recommend grapes, figs, strawberries, physalis and seasonal British berries. Avoid things like apple and pears, as although they taste great with cheese, they will quickly go brown.
Our prices are based on supplying the cheese not on dressing or arranging the cheese.
The 'cheese cake' is created by simply placing the cheeses one on top of the other with the largest at the bottom.
How much notice do I need to give?
We ideally ask for at least a month notice. Many of the cheese we select are made by small producers in low volumes and we therefore need to get orders in early to ensure delivery. We also seek to ensure cheeses are at their optimum for you, so for example making sure a brie is at its gooey best.
Having said this we have had as little as 10 days notice before and managed to create a great cake, so please ask and we’ll do all we can to help.
Customer Feedback
Lovely to get a thank you card from Kelly and Jason Freezer thanking us for the cheese wedding cake.
"We went to the Arch House Deli for our Wedding Cake of Cheese as we wanted to use as many local suppliers as we could, and we knew they stocked a fantastic, local cheese selection. From the start, David and the team impressed us greatly with their cheese knowledge and suggestions for how the cake might take shape. We also particularly enjoyed the tasting session, ensuring we found the right balance of flavours, types and overall looks. The whole process was simple, efficient and, above all, enjoyable. Our guests absolutely loved the cake, and it became a real talking point of the day. We cannot recommend the Arch House Deli enough." - Elizabeth Barrett
As well as many cakes for weddings in Bristol, we also recently provided English cheeses for an Anglo/Franco wedding in France. The English cheeses made up the bulk of the cake with soft French cheeses being used us the upper layers and decoration. They do things slightly differently in France, as you can see from this photo; Not just fruit but also fireworks!
Thanks to Marie-Josephe Obrentz for the photos and for taking the cheese back in her luggage.
"We used Arch House Deli to provide our wedding cheese cake and it was a fantastic experience. To start with, we had a wonderful consultation at the Deli to taste all the cheeses. Their experience and expertise is exceptional - we learnt so much about the importance of getting the weight of the cheeses
right, whether or not they might melt in a hot marquee etc etc. It became clear that they have honed their craft when it comes to these wedding cheese cakes - they know it all!"
"Ahead of the day, they were also extremely helpful in giving my mother advice about how best to decorate the cake and also what chutneys to buy."
"Everything went very smoothly in terms of picking up the cheeses the day before the wedding. We were also given slates to put the cheese onto and a cheese slice for the manchego. We ordered an incredible amount but our guests finished almost all of it off, which was a surprise as we really did have a huge amount! Everyone commented on how brilliant the cheese cake was - it was a real showstopper."
"I can't recommend Arch House Deli enough!" - Mariam Kemple Hardy
"The cheese wedding cake was a tremendous success! Thank you" - Marie-Josephe Obrentz
We received this lovely photocard from Glenn and Sally thanking us for the help we gave them with this cheese wedding cake they took to Portugal for their daughters wedding.
"Fantastic cheese wedding cake, it worked perfectly and was a great centre piece for our wedding reception" - Lucy Martin
Here's a cake we put together for Alex and Tom Drew. We used a Brie de Meaux, Montgomery Cheddar, Cornish Yarg, Colston Bassett Shropshire Blue, Wigmore, Reblochon and topped it off with a Coeur Neufchatel. Just under 12.5kg of cheese, which cost just under £225.
"The cheese was a real high point of the wedding. Our guests were absolutely delighted! The quality and the choice was stunning." - Alex Drew
In this cheese wedding cake that we specified for Maite Petiard at the start of 2012 we used a Brie de Meaux, Cornish Yarg, Shropshire Blue, Quickes Cheddar and a White Nancy goat's cheese. The cake weighed just under 11kg was designed for 75 people and cost under £200.
Maite dressed the cake in figs and rosemary to create this beautiful Cheese Wedding Cake.
"We were looking for an alternative to the traditional cake for our wedding, we both loved cheese and thought that it would be great to have a giant cake of cheese instead. David and his team were great.
All we had to do was select the cheeses we wanted, David was on hand to help us by making suggestions and recommendations of cheeses that would be in season at the time of our wedding. Once our selection had been made, that was it, they delivered the cheeses on the day and advised our catering team how to present them. We chose to have the cheese cake as the evening buffet, the wide variety available meant that everybody was catered for. We couldn't recommend the Arch House Deli enough, the cheese and service were fantastic." - Ross & Samantha Purcell
In this cake of cheese that we designed for Sarah Middleton we used a Brie de Meaux as the base followed by a layer of Keens Cheddar, Cornish Yarg, Colston Bassett Shropshire Blue, a whole Woolsery Goat's cheese and topped it off with a Coeur Neufchatel. There were also a couple more Coeur Neufchatels at the base of the cake too.
The cake weighed just over 16.5kg, was designed to give enough cheese for the day and evening event and cost just under £300 in total.
"Everything was great with the cheese - perfect amount and really lovely flavours (I even managed to sit down and eat some of the cheese eventually!!)" - Sarah Middleton
In this tower of cheese we created with and for Ed Hayes, we used a wide range of cheeses including a favourite local cheese called Rachel. Due to the amount of cheese the caterers decided to split the cake into two.
If we're honest though, we suspect that the young onlooker is more interested in the sugar mice.
In this beautifully decorated cheese cake tower we used some unusual cheeses that Paul Richardson (an avid cheese connoisseur) was keen to have as part of his cheese wedding cake.
The base was made up from a classic Keens Cheddar, Cornish Yarg and Colston Bassett Shropshire Blue combination. We then used a few more unusual cheeses, a Tor, 2 Flower Marie cheeses and 2 Tunworths, the caterers then brought it all together to make a stunning cake.
"The cheeses were great and we really enjoyed them and thought they were excellent value for money." - Paul Richardson
"All the information we received from Arch House was just what we were looking for, and the service including the pre-booking cheese tasting worked very well to ensure that we chose the right ones for our palettes, including some (like the Cornish Yarg) which were brand new to us." - Claire Singer and Harry Powells
Bristol Wedding Cake - In the Press
Crumbs Magazine
Sophie Rae of Crumbs Magazine featured our cheese wedding cakes in a feature on unusal Southwest wedding grub options, or to use Sophie's own words "the South West is filled with some of the quirkest, coolest and downright gorgeous wedding grub options around".
Click on the image to read the whole article.
Your Bristol & Somerset Wedding magazine
Great feature on wedding cakes in the Feb/Mar issue of 'Your Bristol & Somerset Wedding' magazine dedicated to weddings in the Bristol and Somerset area.
We featured in the section about Wedding Cakes in general where David talked about what makes a great Cheese Wedding Cake.
Contact us or email us with your details and we will be pleased to provide you with a quote for your perfect cheese wedding cake