By Rory Reynolds
BAKERS are seeing a boom in the number of people looking to celebrate the end of their marriage – with a divorce cake.
Cake makers across Edinburgh have seen a surge in popularity of the specially designed cakes – with some even asking for figures of a bride attacking their groom to be stuck on the top.
And some have even requested bizarre anti-wedding cakes, such as bright purple Parma Violet flavoured creations and even one covered in jet black icing.
The cakes are most often the centrepiece for a divorce party, with some ex-wives even having firms that usually organise hen or stag nights, prepare the event for them.
Karlie MacGregor, 35, is taking 20 pals to Newcastle to celebrate becoming single after splitting from her husband of 10 years.And the only tiers that’ll be involved will be the ones on her divorce cake.
Fresh
She said: “My ex and I married young and we changed as people.
“The split was quite amicable, so why not celebrate a new beginning?
“I’m entering a phase in life and it will be a fresh start.
“Next week will be the six-month anniversary of my break-up and I’m off to Newcastle with 20 friends to celebrate.
“I haven’t decided on my divorce cake yet but I might wear a little black dress on the night to look glam.”
Martin Wilson, owner of La Cerise Patisserie in Leith, said that his shop is currently doing 15 divorce cakes per year.
Obscure
He said: “It’s becoming more a of fashion thing these days.
“People want to make the most of it and look on the plus side of things.
“The divorce cakes tend to be more obscure – they tend to be the opposite of wedding cakes.
“One cake we did was black, completely jet black icing, but inside it had this wonderful chocolate mouse.
“I think it was supposed to represent something, but I’ve no idea what that might be.
“Another cake we did was lemon cheese cake – you’d never have that at a wedding.
“The most recent one we’ve done it a violet coloured cake, that tasted like Parma Violets.
Bizarre
“At a wedding all the attention is on the bride – but at a divorce party the focus is on the cake, so it’s usually something bizarre.”
Aaron Duncan, owner of Have Your Cake and Eat It, made a cake for a woman who had just gone through a divorce.
He said: “The cake was half a house on its side, like a cross section, but the wife was sitting on most of the house and the husband was sitting on half a front door with his bags around him.
“I think if you sent one to an ex-husband was that would be quite cruel, but if your having a party with your friends, I suppose it’s just a bit of fun.”
Angela Crawley, cake designer at Truly Scrumptious, said: “A woman and her friend came in and I could instantly see they were characters.
Exploding Parcel
“She asked for a divorce cake, which ended up being an exploding parcel with a plaque on it saying ‘divorced at last’.”
Margaret Laidlaw, from Clermiston in Edinburgh, also had a party to celebrate the end of her marriage, and even made a divorce cake with the bride pulling the groom along by the scruff of his neck.
She said: “I was happy to be separating from my husband so I thought I’d go the whole hog.
“I transformed some wedding invitations by scratching out the word ‘wedding’ and replaced it with ‘divorce’ – and I invited 50 friends to a fancy dress party, naturally I was a devil.
“A few of the older people thought the celebration was a wee bit cheeky but everybody had a laugh and they could see it was good natured – it gave me some happy memory of a good situation.”
Scrumptious
David Bryce, from Truly Scrumptious cake makers, says they offer divorce cakes for half the price of wedding cakes.
He said: “We sometimes to it for a gag at wedding shows and we offer a divorce cake at half the price of a wedding cake.
“And we’ve done one where the lady was hanging over the man welding an axe with blood coming out his back and things.
“We’ve not had anyone asking for a cake of someone handcuffed to the oven yet – but its only time.”
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