Guaranteed fondant-free

July 10, 2014 3:52 PM

Naked Wedding Cakes Bare It All For the Summer.

Gone are the days when hot Summer weather makes icing drip down your wedding cake! Naked cakes — the trendy cakes that are mostly unfrosted — are great for warmer outdoor weddings and add a simple, elegant style to any sweet spread. By layering the cake and using a minimal amount of frosting, mainly to stick layers together or add a decorative touch, these wedding desserts offer a light sweetness in each bite. If you think that less icing means your cake will lack flair, then add fruity or flowery touches to accent the frosting and flavor. Check out these naked cakes below for inspiration!

posted by Lexica (90 comments total)

"Give the cake a vintage vibe with cool ticket toppers like these. " - eyeroll snort.

But I'm in...cuz cake.
posted by ian1977 at 3:56 PM on July 10, 2014 [4 favorites]

"Succulents are way in right now — and they aren't just for hipster wedding cakes. For a rustic, outdoorsy feel, top off your naked dessert with a variety of the plants. "

Get your fucking cactus off my cake! Are you insane???????
posted by ian1977 at 3:56 PM on July 10, 2014 [37 favorites]

As one who prefers frosting in moderation, I applaud this direction. That said, a coating of frosting helps seal the cake and keep it fresh, these cakes must go almost insta-stale.
posted by leotrotsky at 3:58 PM on July 10, 2014 [22 favorites]

I thought that too leotrotsky, but what about tres leches cake? That stuff has to stay moist forever
posted by ian1977 at 4:01 PM on July 10, 2014

Post title is everything. Fuck a fondant.

I know I know do not literally fuck a fondant
posted by clavicle at 4:03 PM on July 10, 2014 [4 favorites]

As founder and one of the only members of the cupcake-frosting-disarmament-movement, I approve.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 4:07 PM on July 10, 2014 [7 favorites]

god yes fondant can go die in a fire. that said, I agree that you need to pick your cake base very carefully because the flip side of frosting melting and running down the plate is the guests choking on stale, dry crusts.
posted by lonefrontranger at 4:08 PM on July 10, 2014

I think it's time to embrace the wedding pie.
posted by 2bucksplus at 4:12 PM on July 10, 2014 [26 favorites]

None of those cakes are fruit cake.

The problem is solved by having a proper wedding cake: fruitcake with almond paste and royal icing. Perfect - and (if the icing is sealed) the top layer lasts for a year for your anniversary.
posted by jb at 4:13 PM on July 10, 2014 [4 favorites]

CBrachyrhynchos I yearn to join your movement for I too remember the golden days of our ancestors when a cuppycake was 90% cake/10% frosting and not the reverse.

Do we have a jaunty hymn or something?
posted by winna at 4:14 PM on July 10, 2014 [6 favorites]

I'm pretty sure our bakery was staffed with wizards because the freaking fondant was not only tasty day-of, it was actually palatable and sweet a month and a half later, on straight-out-of the-freezer cake. To be honest these cakes only seem like a good idea if there's a stash of dixie cups with the poor, abandoned, leftover frosting for peasants like me who require substantially higher buttercream:cake ratios, but, oh well, cake!
posted by jetlagaddict at 4:15 PM on July 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Perfect - and (if the icing is sealed) the top layer lasts for a year for your anniversary.

So, I get this tradition, and the British (?) variant where you eat it at the christening of the firstborn or whatever, but WHO HAS THAT MUCH SELF CONTROL? We definitely didn't have half a cake left and it definitely made it past a month and a half in the freezer. Definitely a factual story made of truths.
posted by jetlagaddict at 4:17 PM on July 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

So wait

Let me get this straight

It's cake, but with less frosting? On some sides? Who discovered this? How can this be real
posted by clockzero at 4:18 PM on July 10, 2014 [10 favorites]

I am in favour of anything that lessens our international fondant nightmare and the fucking stupid FN (and now other networks FFS) cake trends that have been foisted upon us.

That said, I've seen a bunch of these cakes and none, to my mind, have the formality expected at a formal wedding. For an informal wedding, sure, but they miss the mark at a traditional ceremony.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 4:19 PM on July 10, 2014 [5 favorites]

Personally I think the frosting should come as a "side" for some naked cake skinny dippin'
posted by inthe80s at 4:22 PM on July 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

Psst! Important life hack for cupcakes with too much frosting:

Remove cupcake wrapper; break off bottom half of cupcake. Deposit half of giant frosting mound on it (helps to have a knife, but can be done with fingers if one is determined). Enjoy two smaller cupcakes, each with a reasonable amount of frosting.
posted by nonasuch at 4:23 PM on July 10, 2014 [11 favorites]

I am emphatically not a pastry chef but I am pro-icing, anti-fondant. Fondant takes skill, sure, but seems like non-tasty cheating, just one step removed from fake window cakes.
posted by Morrigan at 4:24 PM on July 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

Gone are the days when hot Summer weather makes icing drip down your wedding cake!

But won't the layered frosting melt and cause the cake to wobble into individual discs not unlike painful slipped vertebrae?
posted by Turkey Glue at 4:27 PM on July 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Can I have the frosting you're not using?

Here, I'll open my mouth to make it easy for you--just spoon it right in.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:31 PM on July 10, 2014 [10 favorites]

Stacked cakes virtually always have a wooden dowel down the centre to prevent this sort of thing. (Unless done in the traditional British style as alluded to above, of which I have vivid memories from when I was a kid and hated fruit cake. Loooooooooooooooved marzipan and royal icing though...)
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 4:32 PM on July 10, 2014 [5 favorites]

...okay I read this too fast and got all excited for this brave new world of erotic wedding cakes.
posted by The Whelk at 4:32 PM on July 10, 2014 [7 favorites]

CBrachyrhynchos I, too want to join your movement for the frosting race has reached ridiculous levels. There is a local cupcake shop that was the one to move up from the one shop location and man the amount of frosting is crazy, way too much to even create two reasonable cupcakes. There is so much frosting the cupcakes tip over on a plate. I am just glad I'm not alone. Though I did feel some of those unfrosted cakes just looked...sad, but I applaud the effort.

Ha - Horace Rumpole, here you go...
posted by dawg-proud at 4:33 PM on July 10, 2014

Oh man, I knew that local shop I mentioned had expanded, but I just looked up their website out of curiosity and they are EVERYWHERE! How? Why? Well, if you're looked for a 70% frosting/30% cake cupcake just look for the franchise out of Nashville.
posted by dawg-proud at 4:37 PM on July 10, 2014

I'm not a real baker, but I play one for friends. I've made a couple of formal wedding cakes; for one I used a homemade marshmallow fondant, which I have to tell you guys, is amazeballs. (Commercial fondant? That stuff is nasty. I only use it for sculpting things which are not meant to be eaten, but which can still be considered edible when a 4 year old snatches it off the cake.)

These cakes are really pretty, and would be fine for a garden wedding, or another informal setting, but everyone is right...they'd go stale before the vows had been spoken. The entire point of a crumbcoat of icing is to stop the cake from going stale. The reason fondant is layered over that in most commercial bakeries is both as an airlock, and because fondant is the fastest, easiest way to get a smooth, seamless finish. It's tricky to go back over a crumbcoat with more buttercream because you can start peeling off the "skin" of the cake itself...leading to total cake failure. (Or in my kitchen: cakeballs!)
posted by dejah420 at 4:39 PM on July 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

If any one of these naked cakes made an appearance at a wedding in my family, half the people in attendance would break their necks running to tell the bride that the baker had fucked up.
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:40 PM on July 10, 2014 [9 favorites]

Naked?! Won't somebody please think of the children! They love frosting.
posted by psoas at 4:42 PM on July 10, 2014 [5 favorites]

I think it's time to embrace the wedding pie.

Don't worry, it's already happening. Along with the wedding whoopie pies, mini pies, mason jar pies, macarons, fake cakes in the front/sheet cakes, pie bars, paleo cakes and all of them breathlessly written up and explicated in terms of decorum and etiquette and hipster trends and NY Wedding pieces, which, I don't know, I don't really get why because does anyone actually care that deeply about seeing THE ONE TRUE CAKE at weddings? Is the pie a lie? Do they really only enjoy the cake cutting bit if it involves an actual bog standard cake? It's dessert and you get to eat it! Hooray! Mazel tov!
posted by jetlagaddict at 4:42 PM on July 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

I am firmly pro-frosting, the more the better. I would eat an all-frosting wedding cake if it could be made. (It has to be decent frosting, but that's a given.)

That said, I'd still much rather have a naked cake than one with fondant. Fondant cakes are the dessert equivalent of Jay Gatsby's library full of books with uncut pages, and they taste about the same.
posted by Metroid Baby at 4:43 PM on July 10, 2014 [4 favorites]

Marzipan is fantastic and should replace fondant.

I quite like the topper on this one: comical and full of whimsy.

Can't say I like this trend, though: they all look like "Austerity cakes".
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 4:43 PM on July 10, 2014 [4 favorites]

(I like this post, though. Any cake-related FPP is a great FPP.)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 4:48 PM on July 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

I like that cake with the bunting. Little cake sails. This cake's coming into your harbour. You cannot stop it. Dread pirate cake.
posted by angerbot at 4:49 PM on July 10, 2014 [18 favorites]

I tried (four years ago) to have a wedding pie, but was told by our venue that it would fall under the list of foods the venue's kitchen could make, and therefore could not be brought in from outside. So I wound up with a cake. Because no way in hell was I letting the USMC make my wedding pie.

Anyway, I got a good cake. And no fondant. Because no good comes from fondant-wrapped cakes.
posted by offalark at 4:52 PM on July 10, 2014

you can help the crumb coat issue and make it less prone to melting in the sun by freezing the layers, sans frosting, the night before you decorate it.

also, the way to deal with all frosted cupcakes is to split them in half and then make a cupcake sandwich out of both halves.
posted by nadawi at 4:52 PM on July 10, 2014 [4 favorites]

"Austerity cakes" is right!

The only way I could endorse a cake like this is if it were strawberry shortcake served trifle-style in a giant glass container.

I also hate fondant but we were talked into some homemade fondant for our wedding cake (because leaves stick to it less than buttercream?) and I have to say it was pretty tasty, and very very thin, so that the other frosting, between the layers, is what you mostly tasted. And fondant does look very pretty. It's not ideal but I learned that there is fondant and then there is fondant.
posted by small_ruminant at 5:09 PM on July 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

Somehow, my grandmother will blame this naked cake trend on gay marriage.
"You see what happens?!"
posted by orme at 5:13 PM on July 10, 2014 [9 favorites]

I'm not a real baker, but I play one for friends. I've made a couple of formal wedding cakes; for one I used a homemade marshmallow fondant, which I have to tell you guys, is amazeballs.


QFT. Marshmallow fondant is easy and delicious. I'm so used to it now, I didn't understand the barrage of anti-fondant comments at first.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:17 PM on July 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

Yes, "naked," fine. But what about a cake that looks like a woman going to the bathroom?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:19 PM on July 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Thank you so much for that PStew SNL video. Bits of it have been running through my head for years!

I much prefer unfrosted cake myself, but I never expected anything I liked would become trendy in any way. Go figger.

I do agree with those who worry that a cake that's destined to sit out for hours runs the risk of drying out. I wonder if that's why so many of these seem to be made of thin layers between moist fillings. At a frosted-cake party I usually just scrape the frosting off.

I call baked potatoes "naked potatoes." It was a progression from "baked" to "bakèd" to "naked."
posted by The Underpants Monster at 5:37 PM on July 10, 2014

There are plenty of pastries stuffed full of creamy and sugary goodness. I like some cake with my cake.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 5:47 PM on July 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Marzipan is fantastic and should replace fondant.

For those of us with nut allergies (seriously, my allergist asked me how the hell I was alive after telling me I'm allergic to all tree nuts), that would present a sad, delicious problem: how to eat the marzipan gracefully whilst keeping the epi-pen ready in the other hand.

And yeah, echoing nadawi's advice. The crumb coat is just the undercoating which prevents crumbs getting through to the real layer of frosting. Most wedding cakes (unless you're using cardboard fondant) are a two- or three-day process to make. Overnight chilling is essential. Day 1) bake, cool, crumb-coat, chill or freeze overnight. Day 2) full frosting coat, chill or freeze overnight. Day 3) detailing with piping etc, then usually deliver day 4. Or so says a friend of mine from school who went into wedding cakery.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:09 PM on July 10, 2014 [4 favorites]

The only way I could endorse a cake like this is if it were strawberry shortcake served trifle-style in a giant glass container.

I would be 110% for wedding trifle. Just a big bowl of trifle on every table. Mmmmm, trifle.
posted by WidgetAlley at 6:30 PM on July 10, 2014 [6 favorites]

To make it worse, you can't do cupcake-sandwich with a super-frosted cupcake that is also one of those with frosting or pudding or whatever stuffed in the middle. Just get a fork, I guess.

I seem to recall a conversation with my grandmother about flattop cakes, which are layer cakes with only frosting on the top and between the layers, in order to save the butter, eggs, and sugar ration during the war. Interesting to see this brought back for very hip weddings. I suppose if you served naked cake in a mason jar, it'd be both extra hipster and deal with the stale cake problem.
posted by blnkfrnk at 6:36 PM on July 10, 2014

If this unfrosted Summer cake phase becomes an ongoing thing, then maybe I can help to explain the lyrics to MacArthur Park to puzzled future generations.
posted by ovvl at 7:04 PM on July 10, 2014

seriously, my allergist asked me how the hell I was alive after telling me I'm allergic to all tree nuts

Derail conversation with my allergist:

Allergist: I've got your test results. You're allergic to trees.

Monster: Trees?

Allergist: Trees.

Monster: Which trees?

Allergist: Just trees. All of them.

Monster: ALL trees?

Allergist: Well, not ALL of them really.

Monster: Well, that's a relief.

Allergist: Just all the ones that grow here in the Northeast.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:08 PM on July 10, 2014 [16 favorites]

I really want to see some PinterestFail versions of these.
posted by gatorae at 7:09 PM on July 10, 2014 [7 favorites]

If this is a means of lowering the insane cost of weddings, I applaud.

But I'm suspicious. Applying frosting is an art. When someone deliberately abandons an art and tries to pass the results off as cutting edge, I suspect incompetence and rip-off.

(Which is not to say I would dismiss some of these for other occasions. Summer benefits from lots of fruit.)
posted by BWA at 7:36 PM on July 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

Cake is great, but croquembouche is where it's really at for a wedding dessert.
posted by atropos at 8:07 PM on July 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

Summer benefits from lots of fruit.

Quatre quarts: olive oil pound cake, one of my favorites
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:36 PM on July 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

Growing up I always said I wanted a pineapple upside down cake for my wedding. I got overruled on the actual cake, but my grandma did send one for the groom's cake. It was gone before the wedding cake was.
posted by lysdexic at 8:38 PM on July 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Most cakes and cupcakes nowadays appear to be about 1/3 frosting and 2/3 cake. This is an unacceptable frosting distribution. It should be at least 25-75 if not 20-80.

If you require more frosting it will of course be available on the side in any quantity you wish free of charge. This shall be law.

my totalitarian gynocentric theocracy is gonna be so rad guys
posted by elizardbits at 8:46 PM on July 10, 2014 [11 favorites]

And of course Crumbs, the leader in super frosting cupcakes went bankrupt overnight and closed all thier stores at once and now there is no more Crumbs and one person was ebaying a cupcake they had in the fridge.
posted by The Whelk at 8:53 PM on July 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

If I ever get married again it's fried pies for everyone.
posted by emjaybee at 9:07 PM on July 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

Cookie Table > Wedding Cake
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:24 PM on July 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

My cake is dough on both sides!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:34 PM on July 10, 2014

These cakes look delicious and I would eat all of them except the blue one.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 10:06 PM on July 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yaaaaaaay no frosting!

I just hate frosting. I like whipped cream, and that's about all I can take on cakes. Everything else is just why I end up hating cake.

I do think all of these would be better if they were shortcake with strawberries and blueberries, however. Because shortcake is where it's at.

Also, no frosting means perfect Star Wars cakes.
posted by Katemonkey at 2:28 AM on July 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I had my wedding cake coated in white chocolate instead of fondant. WHITE CHOCOLATE NOM. (YesIknowit'snotrealchocolate.)
posted by Omnomnom at 3:40 AM on July 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

When someone deliberately abandons an art and tries to pass the results off as cutting edge, I suspect incompetence and rip-off.

Minimalism is also an artistic aesthetic.
posted by empath at 4:14 AM on July 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

Cake Wrecks has, of course, been there.
posted by empath at 4:18 AM on July 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

And finally: I'm fairly sure this would leave you with a somewhat dried out 'crust' on the outside of the cake, but the inside shouldn't go stale.
posted by empath at 4:24 AM on July 11, 2014

2bucksplus: "I think it's time to embrace the wedding pie."

My wedding reception was literally across the street from a pie shop. So when two bakers flaked on us, we ordered 2 dozen pies (a dozen apple, a dozen berry, plus one coconut cream for fancy pie-cutting pictures). People STILL talk about how awesome the pie was, 3 years later. And instead of eating nasty year-old freezer cake on our anniversary, we went and got a fresh lemon meringue.
posted by specialagentwebb at 5:37 AM on July 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

The tradition of "eat this ancient frozen cake X many years later, it's romantic!" is inexplicable to me. If someone wants to tell me they think our love is old and frozen and stale they should say so without involving an innocent cake who has hurt no one and was through no fault of its own forced into dry crumbly tastelessness.
posted by elizardbits at 5:46 AM on July 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Though it's been around since at least the heyday of the Victoria Sponge , it should be said that Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milkbar fame made this naked cake cool.
posted by Lisitasan at 5:46 AM on July 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

I've never liked the taste or texture of fondant, marzipan and regular frosting but my mouth is not big enough to contain the deliciousness of cream cheese frosting.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 6:38 AM on July 11, 2014

2bucksplus: "I think it's time to embrace the wedding pie."

I went to a wedding recently where the bride hated cake so they had a variety of petit fours, tartlets, and pies. It was wonderful. And no one was weird about it! No one missed cake at all!
posted by troika at 6:51 AM on July 11, 2014

"I think it's time to embrace the wedding pie."

whynotboth.gif
posted by kmz at 6:55 AM on July 11, 2014

We did have a half sheet of pineapple cake for our wedding, which was acceptable, even for someone with a dislike of cake. Buttercream, tropical theme, went well with everything and was highly enjoyable.

We did not have nasty year-old freezer cake, because while we were on our honeymoon, my father, who took the cake home with him, decided to eat it. Even as the pineapple was fermenting (due to being in a car for five hours as he drove home from Vegas to L.A.).

It was apparently still quite delicious. He might have been drunk at the time.
posted by Katemonkey at 7:04 AM on July 11, 2014

whynotboth.gif

That just seems like an unholy abomination the likes of which could actually break a seal of the apocalypse. All those things are great on their own, why would you combine them? The total of them does not exceed their individual excellence, if anything it detracts from that excellence. IT'S JUST TOO MUCH GOING ON AT ONCE. Instead of a party in your mouth it's a terrible riot.
posted by elizardbits at 7:24 AM on July 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

I think people should be able to do what they want in the privacy of their own weddings. I mean, I'm pretty tolerant and all and I feel like we all have our own tastes but I guess what I'm trying to say is...if someone tries to pull this bullshit at a wedding I am attending I will call. them. out.
posted by Sophie1 at 7:46 AM on July 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

My wedding reception was literally across the street from a pie shop.

PLEASE tell me you had a Sweeney Todd-themed wedding. I will sleep much better at night believing it.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:50 AM on July 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

My husband's cousin is getting married in a fancy-rustic converted barn next month (in a BARN, in AUGUST, what the hell) and I can picture one of these cakes being just the thing for their rusticky mason jar whatever. The one that's "lightly frosted" does look unacceptably unfinished to me, like the baker just gave up after the crumb coat. I'm not crazy about most frostings and I hate fondant so I'd be happy if they did this. I'd be even happier if I didn't have to spend an August afternoon at an outdoor ceremony and then in a barn, but hey.
posted by SeedStitch at 8:02 AM on July 11, 2014

Marzipan, like whiskey, chocolate, Belgian beer, and oral sex, is proof-positive that the Cosmos loves us and wants us to be happy. All-5 en suite would be a pentafecta of luxury and contentment.

Mmmmmmm… pentafecta cake!

Yes, the Cosmos loves people w Nut allergies too. But mutants happen.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:14 AM on July 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

So what you're saying is you want to eat marzipan bonbons while drinking Belgian boilermakers and having someone go down on you?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:30 AM on July 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

Well, yes. Or be going down on someone enjoying the same.

Though I was actually imagineing a whiskey-chocolate cake with marzipan, a draft, and oral sex.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:42 AM on July 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

> So what you're saying is you want to eat marzipan bonbons while drinking Belgian boilermakers and having someone go down on you

Not at the reception, no.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:33 AM on July 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Me be not the main reception, but with the right circle of friends and acquaintances…
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 12:49 PM on July 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

If I ever find a dude that I can keep from alienating long enough to utilize the marriage equality in Maryland, my wedding cake is going to be a selection of lemon meringue pies. And proper southern ones, too, not those shitty ones with see-through astringent lemon gel like the horrors non-southerners mistake for lemon meringue pies, either. Plus, when the guests wade back from the actual ceremony on the Maryland side of the Potomac for the reception, pie will hit the spot way better than some sad ol' cakes.
posted by sonascope at 2:34 PM on July 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

my wedding cake is going to be a selection of lemon meringue pies

*begins plotting how to get an invitation*
posted by Lexica at 2:38 PM on July 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

> proper southern ones, too, not those shitty ones with see-through astringent lemon gel like the horrors non-southerners mistake for lemon meringue pies, either

recipe pls
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:56 PM on July 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't have our actual ratty recipe index card on hand, but the secret to a southern-style pie, like many southern foods (interestingly, because of food shortages following reconstruction), comes in a can--in this case, canned sweetened condensed milk. The official Eagle Brand version is a pretty good starting point, though you should use actual juice from actual lemons, up the zest a bit (and add some lime zest to zing it up), and make your own baked crust (graham crusts aren't right for these). I make a baked oil crust for mine (my default hard-to-fuck-up crust) and they work out nicely in this context.

Of course, I'm just accustomed to this pie because I'm half-southern/half-Baltimore and it's all I ever had until I ventured out into the world, so it's personal taste as much as anything, but when I've had the pinched northern lemon variant, I find that the weird gel curd is way way too tart and that the creamy wonderness of the meringue just gets lost in the harsh distinction between the solidified Pledge furniture polish of the custard across that boundary between the two. In the southern rendition, it's just this perfect pillow fight of fluffy flavors tusslin' in the buttery bed of crust. To each their own, of course, but ye lemon pie gel infidels will never know the touch of the divine.
posted by sonascope at 6:36 AM on July 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

sonascope, that's pretty much exactly how I make my key lime (or makrut lime if I can find the actual limes and not just the leaves) pie: 6 egg yolks, 1 can sweetened condensed milk, juice and zest of 6-8 limes depending on size. Blind bake a crust (protip: coins you have put through the dishwasher are better than using beans; Heston Blumenthal's trick. Works better because they really get into the edges and help with heat transmission. Change your timing accordingy), add goop, bake in a bain Marie until barely set, chill.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:53 AM on July 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

When I'm cooking in Sylvania, Georgia, for our Thanksgiving reunion feasts, a task that's quickly becoming my thing as the older generation are earning the right to sit back and tell tales while the young folks freshly middle-aged folks do the grunt work, I use my great Aunt Catherine's pie weights, which are a mason jar's worth of buckshot spray-painted in day-glo colors (now aged to a nice faded patina) in a late-sixties art project by some of the "kids." They work beautifully well on a layer of foil, but I bet a few bucks in pennies would be good, too.

Fortunately, we had a pretty frequent source of key limes from my citrus farmer cousin-in-law, Dixie Royal (this is a grown man, which makes his name absolutely the most perfect name ever), though I've been doing mainly pecan, molasses, and pumpkin pies since he's gotten too old to drive up every year.

Come to think of it, I need to start planning my menu.
posted by sonascope at 1:02 PM on July 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

A thought just occurred. Lemongrass meringue pie. Perhaps dense-foaming coconut milk as the 'meringue,' with Thai basil baked into the crust. (one of my favourite flavour combinations ever, because there are SO MANY possible permutations.)
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:42 PM on July 12, 2014 [7 favorites]

Dear agent fffm: this is your mission and please for the love of all things delicious, accept it. And then give us the recipe!!
posted by jetlagaddict at 4:33 PM on July 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

just showed my yankee husband the difference in lemon meringues and found out he'd only had the bright yellow monstrosity. i've been slackin' apparently. of course, he also said he preferred the pull apart flaky biscuits (instead of the true buttermilk biscuit) for biscuits and gravy, so we obviously have more work to do.
posted by nadawi at 6:14 PM on July 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah I'm sorry but I've been to weddings without cakes and that's not ok. If I'm buying a dress and showing up to your party, feeding me cake is holding up your end of the deal. Otherwise you just got me to leave the house on false pretenses.
posted by dame at 6:38 PM on July 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

Lemon merengue pie is so spicy it makes you get up and do a Latin dance.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:41 PM on July 12, 2014

As the son of a dessert caterer, I look seriously askance at this. Sure, all wedding trends are obnoxious, and fondant is not only a pain in the ass to work with, but also seriously overused. However, that said, I really don't get the point of having cakes with less frosting and more freaking cactus garnish.
posted by wakannai at 10:36 PM on July 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

fffm: tom yum pie? I'm so accustomed to lemongrass and basil being in savory stuff that if I tried your pie I'd be wondering where the shrimp was.

My sister and her husband resolved the cake issue by asking people to bring cakes in lieu of wedding gifts (an idea they stole from the husband's sister). Their own wedding cake was similarly unfrosted, though not as tall - they were British but didn't like the fruitcake & marzipan deal.
posted by divabat at 12:25 PM on July 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

divabat, one of my more successful desserts ever has been coconut&lemongrass panna cotta with mango (in various forms; usually a gelee) and Thai basil as garnish (I've also done a much more complex version involving a black tea--usually lapsang souchong--gel, honeycomb candy/sponge toffee made with honey, and mango candied with star anise and juniper). Those plates pretty much always came back looking like they didn't even need to go through the dishwasher.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:53 PM on July 16, 2014 [3 favorites]