Fabulicious Inspiration

Snow Cone

Icey Iridescence
Believe it or not, the concept of shaved ice treats dates back thousands of years. In ancient times, people would gather ice from mountains and store it in underground ice houses. This ice was then shaved by hand and flavored with various natural syrups and juices. These early versions of snow cones were a luxury enjoyed by the elite, as ice was a rare and precious commodity. This icy treat was particularly enjoyed by Persian royalty, who enjoyed it as a way to cool down during the scorching summer months.

The first electric ice shaver was invented in the 1920s, making it easier and more efficient to produce shaved ice treats. Snow cones became a hit at fairs, carnivals, and amusement parks, delighting children and adults alike with their colorful and refreshing flavors.

(https://www.snowiesensation.com/post/the-history-of-snow-cones)

Gumball Machine

Worth Every Quarter
The first chewing gum vending machines appeared in the United States around 1888, making them one of the earliest coin-operated vending machines in the world. The round candy-coated gumball and gumball vending machines were introduced in 1907 by the Thomas Adams Gum Co. and the look of the classic Carousel Gumball Machine hasn't changed much since. Gumballs were inexpensive and had a long shelf life; the machines were reliable and did not require refrigeration or electricity. Soon they could be found at train stations, general stores, pubs, parks, and tourist locations. During American Prohibition, all forms of gambling were forbidden and this impacted gumball machines since some were viewed as “gambling machines” since they had the option to reward every 10th user by giving them their penny back!  (https://www.candymachines.com/History-of-the-Gumball-Machine.aspx, https://design-encyclopedia.com/?T=Gumball%20Machines)

Orange Soda Pop

Citrus Chic
Orange soft drinks first appeared in soda fountains in the late 19th century as Orangeade in the UK and Orangina in France. In the US, Orange Crush hit the market in 1911. Fanta originated in WWII Germany when the American trade embargo of Nazi Germany affected the availability of Coca-Cola products. Max Keith, the head of Coca-Cola Deutschland, tried to develop something they could make with locally available ingredients and exhorted his development team to "use their imagination" (Fantasie in German), to which one of his salesmen, Joe Knipp, retorted "Fanta!" Many bottles were not actually consumed as a beverage in war-torn Germany but used as a cooking ingredient to add sweetness and flavor to soups and stews, as sugar was severely rationed. The current formulation of orange-flavored Fanta was developed in 1955 and is currently the 9th most popular soda in the United. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanta)

Pumpkin Pie

A Slice of Highland Spice
Pumpkins were first cultivated in Central America around 5,500 B.C. and were one of the earliest foods the first European explorers brought back from the New World. When the Pilgrims sailed for America on the Mayflower in 1620, it’s likely they were already familiar with the squash that would later make up part of their first harvest celebration with the Wampanoag people. English cookbook writer Hannah Woolley’s 1670 Gentlewoman’s Companion suggested a pie filled with alternating layers of pumpkin and apple, spiced rosemary, sweet marjoram and handful of thyme. A crust was not actually necessary: an early New England recipe involved filling a hollowed-out pumpkin with spiced, sweetened milk and cooking it directly in a fire.

By the early 18th century, Thanksgiving had become an important New England regional holiday and pumpkin pie had earned a place at the table. In 1705 a Connecticut town famously postponed its Thanksgiving for a week because there wasn’t enough molasses available to make pumpkin pie! 

In the mid-19th century, pumpkin pie was injected into the country’s tumultuous debate over slavery. Many abolitionists were from New England, and their favorite dessert soon found mention in novels, poems and broadsides. Sarah Josepha Hale, an abolitionist who worked for decades to have Thanksgiving proclaimed a national holiday, featured the pie in her 1827 anti-slavery novel Northwood, describing a Thanksgiving table laden with desserts of every name and description—“yet the pumpkin pie occupied the most distinguished niche.” When Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, it’s no wonder the Confederacy saw it as a move to impose Yankee traditions on the South. One Virginia editorialist offered a sardonic explanation of the Yankee Thanksgiving: “This is an annual custom of that people, heretofore celebrated with devout oblations to themselves of pumpkin pie and roast turkey.” (https://www.history.com/articles/the-history-of-pumpkin-pie)

Molten Lava Cake

Volcanic Vogue
The 1980s and 1990s were marked by a rise of fine dining restaurants in which chefs were experimenting with new techniques and focused on presentation. The molten lava cake fit perfectly into this trend, offering an elegant and visually appealing dessert. Multiple chefs claim the creation of the molten lava cake, but Jean-Georges Vongerichten, a highly-acclaimed chef with a global presence, is perhaps the most widely recognized. According to his account, the molten lava cake was born out of an accident in the early 1980s. He reportedly took a cake out of the oven too early; the exterior was baked, but the center remained molten. The result was a revelation. Vongertichten embraced the undercooked center as a happy accident and began to serve a version of the cake at his New York restaurant, JoJo.

Some argue that French chef Michel Bras deserves recognition for a similar dish called ‘coulant au chocolat’. Bras’s creation, also developed in the 1980s, features a frozen chocolate ganache center, which melts during baking and oozes out when the cake is cut. 

The molten lava cake’s appeal lies in its contrasting textures. The warm, gooey center contrasts beautifully with the slightly crisp exterior, creating a delightful sensation in every bite. The moment the warm, molten center spills out when the cake is cut is a moment of pure culinary theater.

(https://meemawsrecipes.com/who-invented-molten-lava-cake/)

Chocolate Orange

Segmented Style
The Chocolate Orange was created by Terry's Chocolate Works in York, England in 1932. The orange-shaped ball of chocolate mixed with orange oil is divided into twenty segments, similar to a real orange, and wrapped in orange-skin patterned foil. When packaged, the segments are stuck together firmly in the center; prior to unwrapping, the ball is traditionally tapped severely on a hard surface to cause the segments to separate from each other. The company playfully dubbed the process "Tap and Unwrap" or "Whack and Unwrap." Chocolate oranges are marketed most heavily around Christmas as a continuation of the Victorian tradition of indulging in the luxury of an exotic fruit during the holidays. Roughly one tenth of all Britons receive one in their stocking! 

Juju Dhau

Ruffled Royalty
Juju Dhau, also known as “King Curd” or “Royal Yogurt,” is a traditional Nepalese dessert from the city of Bhaktapur, located in the Kathmandu Valley. Legend has it that this unique yogurt was first prepared during the reign of King Siddhi Narsingh Malla in the 17th century. The king was invited to taste the yogurt, and he exclaimed “Juju Dhau!” in sheer delight, giving birth to the name we now associate with this exceptional dessert. (https://cuisinesofworld.com/nepal/juju-dhau-recipe-from-nepalese-cuisine/)

Melted Ice Cream Cone

Glace Tragique
People have been eating ice cream from various cone-like containers for decades; they just didn't eat the containers themselves. As ice cream grew in popularity in the 19th century, roving vendors began selling it on city streets in a variety of cups and containers, including cone-shaped glass utensils and the notoriously unsanitary "penny licks"—tiny stemmed glasses in which ices were sold at the British seashore and on London streets.

In both England and the US, Italian immigrants dominated the urban ice cream trade, and innovations within it. In 1901, Antonio Valvona, an Italian citizen living in Manchester, England, filed a patent for an "Apparatus for Baking Biscuit Cups for Ice Cream." Other innovators applied for similar patents and when crowds from across the nation came to the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, they were introduced to eating ice cream in cones—or cornucopias, as they were called at the time. The "waffle cornucopia filled with ice cream” was praised for its daintiness and neatness, and became the most popular confection in Coney Island, Atlantic City, Chicago and various other famous resorts. The ice cream cone had arrived.

(https://www.seriouseats.com/ice-cream-cone-history)

Flan

Crema Quemado
Flan, as known as crème caramel, is a popular dessert in Spain and Latin America, but its roots can be found in ancient Rome, when egg surpluses allowed for the development of both sweet and savory custard dishes. Eel-and-pepper flavor, anyone?! Roman conquest spread the dish to Europe and the Spanish in particular adopted the dish and added the caramel sauce element. The Moors contributed flavorings still used today, such as citrus fruits and almonds. As the Romans had done before them, Spanish conquistadors introduced flan to the Americas and the culinary tradition of flan spread throughout Latin America in the centuries that followed.

The word flan is the French equivalent of the Latin word “fladon,” which comes from the Old High German word “flado,” meaning “flat cake.” The standard flan recipe is a simple combination of milk or cream, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. These ingredients are carefully blended and then baked to create a velvety, creamy custard. The caramel sauce, made by melting sugar, gives a sweet and glossy finish.

Jello Mold

Every Day I'm Bustlin'
Molded gelatin dishes have been a part of European foodstuffs since the Middle Ages in the form of savory aspics and sweet blancmanges. Blancmange is even mentioned in the Canterbury Tales!  Cooks would set gelatinous liquids in molds to create beautiful shapes, and often showed off their aesthetic skills by adding layers of other ingredients. 

In 1897, Pearl and May Wait were owners of a relatively unsuccessful cough syrup business in Leroy, NY. They came up with the idea for “Jell-O” by adding cough syrup fruit flavors to gelatin. Two years later Wait sold the idea of Jell-O to his neighbor Frank Woodword, owner of the Genesee Food Company, for $450 (about $17,000 now). In 1925, the renamed Jell-O Company was sold to the Postum Cereal Company, for $84 million (about $1.5 billion today). 

With less food and income available during the Great Depression, families had to be creative in the kitchen. The introduction of Lime Jell-O in 1930 helped catalyze the utilization of Jell-O to stretch leftovers. Jell-O molds, dishes of Jell-O often containing vegetables and/or meat, became a popular way to transform any food scraps into a colorful meal. The mandatory sugar rationing during World War II put a damper on some of the Jell-O manufacturing. Its production continued on a smaller scale, and because Jell-O did not require rationing coupons to buy, many housewives put available Jell-O to good use. In many households, Jell-O was a simple alternative dessert when sugar was sparse. As women joined the workforce during the war, Jell-O also became a simple way to create a meal with minimal preparation. 

The stereotype of members of the Church of Jesus Christ loving Jell-O does not have a long history. Media reports in 1969 and 1988 on foods popular among Mormons or in Utah make no mention of Jell-O, and a 1988 article mentions Jell-O as a Lutheran tradition. In the late 1980s, Jell-O had a marketing campaign promoting the snack and its Jigglers recipe as fun for children and easy for parents, which played well among family-oriented members of the church. In 1997, Kraft released sales figures revealing Salt Lake City to have the highest per-capita Jell-O consumption. 

(https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/exhibits/show/gelatine/jello-company, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jell-O)

Macarons

Denim Delight
Macarons are round, chewy cookies made of almond flour and meringue. They should not be confused with the macaroon, although both names originate from the Latin word maccare (meaning “to crush” into a fine consistency).

 The macaron is an old, and very popular, French snack, but it originated in Italy in the late 1400s and was widely baked in the monasteries of Venice for centuries. The cookie arrived in France in the early 16th century, perhaps brought by the chefs of Catherine de’ Medici of Italy after she married the future King Henry II of France, in 1533. The pastry was largely reserved for the aristocracy and the wealthy until the French Revolution, when two religious sisters sought refuge in Nancy (in northeastern France) after the closing of their abbey. They survived by selling macarons to the public and became known as the Soeurs Macarons (“Macaron Sisters”). In the 1830s, macarons evolved into a double-cookie version, the halves joined by regional varieties of fillings such as jelly, cream, coconut, ganache, and marmalade. Some scholars claim that in 1930 chef Pierre Desfontaines of the famed Ladurée pastry house of Paris created the colorful varieties, now known as Paris macarons. 

(https://www.britannica.com/topic/macaron)

Pulled Taffy

Grape Escape
Taffy pulling is a traditional candy making technique that involves heating a sugar mixture to a specific temperature, then cooling and manipulating it to create a smooth, pliable, chewy candy. The name “taffy” is believed to have originated from the term “toffy,” which was a type of English candy made from molasses. Over time, taffy pulling evolved to include new ingredients and techniques, such as the use of corn syrup, food coloring, and various flavors, such as vanilla, chocolate, or fruit. 

In the early days, taffy was pulled by hand, using a combination of strength and technique to stretch and fold the sugar mixture. In the mid-19th century, taffy pulls were a popular social event; the host would prepare a taffy recipe by melting molasses and sorghum or sugar with a mixture of water, and participants would coat their hands with butter and working with a partner, pull the hot mixture apart, then fold it back together and repeat. This process would add air to the candy, resulting in a soft chewable texture. The introduction of mechanized taffy pullers in the early 20th century revolutionized the candy-making industry, making it possible to mass-produce taffy. 

Salt water taffy is a variety of soft taffy originally produced and marketed in Atlantic City, New Jersey in the 1880s. This sticky treat is often associated with coastal towns, though it does not include any seawater! Laffy Taffy was first produced in the 1970s by Kathryn Beich Candies of Bloomington, Illinois as "Beich's [Name of Flavor] Caramels," though they were not in fact caramels at all! Laffy Taffy was originally advertised as having a "long-lasting" flavor, and jokes have been printed on the wrapper since the  brand’s introduction. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taffy_(candy)#Taffy_pull; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffy_Taffy)

Cotton Candy

You Spin Me Right Round, Baby
Cotton candy's roots trace back to 15th-century Italy, where Renaissance-era chefs created elaborate spun sugar confections for the wealthy elite. Cooks melted sugar used forks to flick strands of the molten sugar over sticks, creating delicate, crunchy sugar nests in artistic forms. These earlier versions of cotton candy were so labor-intensive and expensive that spun sugar remained a delicacy reserved for the ultra-rich. Cotton candy, as we know it, wouldn't be invented until centuries later. 

Modern cotton candy was invented in 1897 in Nashville, Tennessee, by a partnership between William Morrison and John C. Wharton, who sought to create a device to spin sugar. Their invention worked by melting sugar crystals in a central bowl, forcing the liquid sugar through a wire screen using compressed air, and spinning the rapidly cooling strands into a nest using a rotating drum. Morrison and Wharton patented the "electric candy machine" in 1899 and debuted their product at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, selling their creations under the name "Fairy Floss." The fair's success established cotton candy as a permanent fixture at carnivals and circuses. 

(https://www.historyoasis.com/post/history-cotton-candy)

Candy Ribbon

Pastel en Pointe
Ribbon candy is a type of hard candy which in North America most often appears for sale around the Christmas holiday season. It acquires its shape by first being fashioned as warm sugar into flat strips. A strip is then folded back and forth over itself to form a hardened ribboned stick. The sugar is often colored to appear festive, and the candy often has a glossy sheen. It is commonly made with extracts, often of different mint or citrus flavors. Ribbon candy goes back for centuries in Europe, though it is unclear exactly where the candy was first created.

Confectioners developed the candy as a Christmas decoration for their shops, modeling the wavy form around the candy maker's thumb. In the 1800s mechanical crimpers were invented to shape the ribbons.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_candy)

Strawberry Candy

Grandma's Candy Dish
Strawberry bon bons are a classic candy that has been enjoyed by generations. In the mid-1800s, drop-shaped hard candies became a new and exciting invention in France. These candies were later brought to the US and became popular during the Great Depression. The 1930s saw a candy boom in which manufacturers experimented with many new flavors, including strawberry. By the 1920s and ’30s, having a glass dish full of candy was a status symbol, and strawberry bon bons were a popular choice.  In the past, candy was often sold loose in bulk bins. However, in the early 1900s, candy makers began to package their candy in individual wrappers. This not only helped to keep the candy fresh, but it also made it more convenient for consumers to purchase and carry with them. The strawberry wrapper of these candies became iconic. Strawberry bon bons have been an artifact of nostalgia for a long time. 

In the book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the protagonist Holden Caulfield reminisces about the times he spent with his younger sister, Phoebe, sharing a box of strawberry bon bons. The candy serves as a reminder of the innocence and simplicity of childhood.

(https://historyofcandy.com/history-of-strawberry-bon-bons-candy/)

Key Lime Pie

Luminous Limón
Key lime pie is an American dessert that consists of a graham cracker or pastry crust, a custard made from egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, and key lime juice, and a topping of either whipped cream or meringue. This sweet and tart pie reportedly originated in Key West, Florida, in the late 19th century, where it was often served at local restaurants.  The keys were a popular tourist destination at the time, and the dessert soon spread across the country. The use of sweetened condensed milk, an essential ingredient, is probably because fresh milk and refrigeration were uncommon in the isolated Florida Keys until the 1930s. The pie is often made using regular limes now, since the small, yellowish key limes have not been commercially grown in the keys in decades, mostly because of damaging hurricanes and disease. 

(https://www.britannica.com/topic/key-lime-pie)

Watermelon

Slice of Style
"Watermelon is the chief of this world's luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat," declared Mark Twain.

Aptly named, watermelon is 92 percent water and was first used by ancients as a source of water. Watermelon's history dates back 5000 years to southern Africa where the tough, drought-tolerant ancestor of watermelon thrived. Although we don't know the exact identity of this plant, we do know it was prized for its ability to store water and was used by indigenous people in the Kalahari Desert region. Unlike today's watermelon, it had very bitter flesh. Soon thereafter, watermelon found its way to Egypt, where sweeter varieties were developed; both seeds and paintings of watermelon have been discovered in Egyptian tombs more than 4,000 years old. The biblical narrative of the Israelites in the desert references watermelon as one of the foods the Israelites longed for after leaving Egypt (Numbers 11:5). Additionally, ancient manuscripts of Jewish Law record watermelon as one of the items to be tithed and set aside for distribution to priests and the poor. 

The Greeks and Romans considered watermelon to have medicinal properties. Watermelon was being cultivated in India by the 7th century, and by the 10th century it had found its way to China. The Moors introduced watermelon into the Iberian Peninsula in the 13th century and, from there, it spread throughout southern Europe. By the 17th century watermelon was widely planted throughout Europe and had become a familiar garden crop in warmer parts of the continent. Its bright red color comes from the pigment lycopene which is a powerful antioxidant. 

To pick a delicious watermelon in the grocery store every time, look for a creamy yellow groundspot, a strong, consistent stripe pattern of dark green and light yellow, and do a gentle “knock test:” if the pitch sounds deep and hollow, the fruit has more water and is likely ripe. (https://ipm.missouri.edu/MEG/2020/7/watermelon-DT/; https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/shopping-storing/food/how-to-pick-watermelon)

Fruit Roll Up

Red 40 Revolution
A Fruit Roll-Ups is a fruit-flavored snack brand first sold in grocery stores in 1979 by General Mills. The product is a flat, corn-syrup-based, fruit-flavored sheet rolled into a tube and laid on cellophane to keep it from sticking to itself. Fruit Roll-Ups were heavily marketed on television in America throughout the early 1980s. Most spots featured the tag line "Fruit Corners Fruit Roll-Ups: Real fruit and fun, rolled up in one." Later spots featured children innovating in the Willy Wonka-like "Fruit Roll-Up Fun Factory." 

Fruit Roll-Ups have featured variants on the original plain sheets such as punch out shapes on the rolls and temporary tattoos for tongues and formerly on skin.

Concha Cookie

Dulce Debut
A concha is a traditional Mexican sweet bread with similar consistency to a brioche. Conchas get their name from their round shape and their striped, seashell-like appearance (concha means “shell”). These sweetened bread rolls have a crunchy topping (composed of flour, butter, and sugar) and are commonly flavored with  chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. Conchas are commonly found throughout Mexico, Guatemala, and now in panaderias across the United States. The exact origin of the concha is unknown. Many believe that it dates back to the colonial period, and was introduced by French bakers who settled in Mexico. The first recorded recipe for the sweet bread is from 1820.   (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concha)

Black Swan Cake

Cocoa Noire
Swans have long symbolized love, beauty, elegance, fertility, and good fortune. A roasted swan (with feathers reapplied after cooking) was a frequent feature on the head table of medieval and Renaissance banquets. Later artisans would create swans out of meringue, marzipan, or sugar, and in the late 18th century, swan cakes were popular, especially at birthday celebrations and weddings. Swan cakes have traditionally been vanilla flavored, but recently some bakers have been creating black swan cakes.

In Western culture, the black swan represents rarity, transformation, and unexpected grace. Historically considered impossible until discovered in Australia, it now symbolizes breaking norms—a perfect metaphor for celebrating someone extraordinary. (https://familyfeastrecipes.us/swan-birthday-cake/)

Black Licorice

Silken Sable Twist
Black licorice is made from the root of a flowering shrub that thrives in parts of Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. One of the earliest mentions of licorice comes from the Greek physician Hippocrates around 400 BC, who wrote about his belief that consuming licorice could help treat ulcers and quench thirst. Alexander the Great gave licorice to his troops to keep their hydration levels up during long marches. And the ancient Egyptians even used licorice to make sweet drinks — stockpiles of licorice were even found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. Black licorice candy is thought to have been created in the English town of Pontefract in 1760 by a pharmacist who added sugar to a cough medicine containing licorice root to make it taste better. Soon black licorice candy became popular throughout England and spread throughout Europe. (https://www.backthenhistory.com/articles/the-history-of-black-licorice)

Candy Sugar Art

Tempered Temptress
Sugar has been used to create sculptures since Egyptian times, but it became very popular at grand Renaissance feasts. Sugar was fairly expensive, and using it to decorate the table was a display of wealth and status. 

Sugar can be casted in molds. This technique produces sturdy pieces that are almost always used for the base and structural elements of showpieces. Sugar can also be shaped by pulling, in which melted sugar is poured onto a silicone rubber mat and colored, folded, and stretched. This process incorporates air into the sugar, and gives it a bright lustrous sheen. The sugar can then be sculpted by hand into various shapes, made into ribbons, or blown.

In blown sugar, a portion of pulled sugar is placed on the tip of a handpump hose and inflated and shaped, often into animals or flowers. Sugar can also be handmolded, spun, and formed into rock-like crystal formations, all in the pursuit of visually stunning art. 

Modern sugar artists often use isomalt, a sugar alcohol derived from beet sugar. Unlike traditional sugar,  isomalt remains clear when melted and doesn’t caramelize or crystalize as easily, so artists can achieve a beautiful glass-like finish. Isomalt is more durable than regular sugar, making creations less fragile, and it doesn’t absorb as much moisture, so sugar sculptures are less likely to get sticky in humid conditions, and it can be shaped by pulling and blowing. 

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_sculpture, https://www.bakedeco.com/blog/isomalt-101-a-beginners-guide-to-working-with-sugar-art/ )

Berry Crepes

Couture à la Crème
Thin pancakes are common in many global cuisines, but none are more famous than the French crêpes. Crêpes can  be made sweet or savory and are typically rolled or folded with a variety of fillings from jam or Nutella to ham and cheese to seafood. In the United States, crêpes are usually seen as an elegant dessert or breakfast. 

The history of crêpes is shrouded in legend. In French folklore, there is a tale that the crêpe's origin was born of a “happy accident” when a 13th-century housewife in Brittany accidentally spilled some buckwheat porridge from a kettle in the fireplace onto a flat cooking stone; other sources put crêpes much earlier on the timeline. Le Jour des Crêpes (“the day of crêpes”), February 2, is believed to have begun in the year 472 when crêpes were offered to French Catholic pilgrims visiting Rome for Candlemas by Pope Gelasio I. Now, Le Jour des Crêpes and Candlemas are synonymous occasions in France and Belgium, where crêpes take on additional meaning, their circular nature symbolizing the sun.  

(https://www.ice.edu/blog/french-crepes)

Rococo Wedding Cake

Let Them Eat Cake
“In medieval England, wedding guests would bring small spiced buns or scones to stack into a tower,” says cake historian Odette D’Aniello. “If the couple could kiss over it without it falling, they were promised a prosperous marriage.” Tiered wedding cakes came into fashion during the 18th and 19th centuries, inspired by church spires and status-symbol architecture. According to legend, one baker modeled his tiered cake after the steeple of St. Bride’s Church in London.

Cakes were historically whatever color they came out of the oven, but coating a cake with icing was a practical innovation.The most common white icing was royal icing, made from egg whites and superfine sugar, and it hardened into a glossy shell that preserved the cake for weeks. No fridge required! People had been icing cakes white before Queen Victoria came onto the scene, but much like she did with the white wedding dress, she took a fringe trend and made it go mainstream. Her 1840 wedding cake was a 300-pound, multi-tiered English plum cake coated in dazzling white royal icing. Wealthy aristocrats had featured white-iced cakes before, but Queen Victoria was the ultimate trendsetter. Her white cake became an aspirational symbol for the burgeoning middle classes. Refined white sugar was incredibly expensive, so a white cake was also an overt display of social status. 

Rococo is a term for an elaborately ornamental late-baroque style of decoration prevalent in 18th-century Continental Europe, with asymmetrical patterns involving motifs and scrollwork. Wedding cake creators have been inspired by this style of centuries, turning a celebration dessert into a piece of art intended to be seen as much or more than be eaten. 

(https://www.rd.com/article/history-of-wedding-cakes/)

Pavlova

Meringue Étoile
Pavlova is the cause of an intense international debate. The dessert was named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, who was a megastar when she toured Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s. Both countries claim the invention of this delicious meringue covered in whipped cream and fruit. 

On the Australia side, chef Herbert “Bert” Sachse is said to have created the pavlova at Perth's Esplanade Hotel in 1935, and it was named by the house manager, Harry Nairn, who remarked it was “as light as pavlova.” New Zealanders often cite the story of an unnamed chef at a Wellington hotel, who was inspired to invent the pavlova by the fluffy white tutus of the ballerina. Regardless of who first created it, baking a “pav” and turning up to a backyard barbecue with the dessert in hand is about as Australian AND Kiwi as it gets. On Christmas Day, soon after the last prawn has been peeled, the white meringue cake topped with cream and fruit takes pride of place on tables across both countries. It’s a dish synonymous with summer celebrations. (https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200804-the-surprising-truth-about-pavlovas-origins)