The wedding cake … is no ordinary object,” Simon R. Charsley writes in his book Wedding Cakes and Cultural History (Routledge, 1992).

In fact, it is so extraordinary it no doubt would attract the attention of “a competent young anthropologist arriving on this planet from Mars,” says Mary Douglas, an anthropologist who has done extensive research in the field of food.

The Martian might have trouble making up his mind, though, “whether the central focus of the (wedding) ceremony was the marriage or the cake,” she adds.

Indeed, the cake is a crucial ingredient of a wedding.

Rose Levy Berenbaum, author of The Cake Bible (William Morrow, 1988), says, “Sometimes I would match my cake to the wedding gown.” But “other times the whole wedding theme — the bride’s gown, the bridesmaids’ dresses, the flowers, even the tablecloths — was planned around my Dotted Swiss Dream cake,” a white cake with a lemon mousseline filling covered with a smooth fondant, marzipan roses and royal icing “pearls.”

Margaret Lastick, a baker known for the custom cakes she makes at Le Royale Icing in Oak Park, Ill., concurs that the cake is key: “After guests ooh and aah at the bride’s dress, everyone focuses on the cake. It has become such an emotional issue for brides that they sometimes come to me to discuss cakes a year or two before the actual wedding.”

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Although the angst surrounding wedding cakes is new, cakes themselves have been a vital part of weddings ever since the Romans offered barley cakes to the god Jupiter more than 2,000 years ago.

Cakes traditionally were broken over the head of the bride as a symbol of plenty. Then to ensure plentifulness for themselves, guests often took some of the cake home.

During the Middle Ages, guests presented the bride and groom with sweet buns. They were assembled into a tower that the couple attempted to kiss over, hoping to bring prosperity and a passel of children.

Just as cakes have varied through time, they also have varied according to country.

In Britain, wedding cakes today are usually a dark, rich, multitiered fruitcake adorned with marzipan and royal icing.

Australians enjoy a cake similar to the British, but they have concocted a “plastic” (uncooked) icing and have rounded the tiered edges to create a softer look.

In France, an ornamental work of patisserie called a piece montee graces the wedding table. It is usually either a croquembouche, an impressive cone of cream puffs held together with caramel, or a stately matching set of sponge cakes, decorated with marzipan, butter-cream or royal icing.

In Japan, wedding cakes turned up after World War II at the weddings of celebrities. Because they cost a small fortune, however, artificial cakes soon replaced real ones.

After all, “the whole thing exists (just for the first cut by the bride and groom) and for the standard photograph to be taken,” Charsley writes.

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In the United States, wedding-cake traditions remained largely unchanged for years.

“Wedding cakes are not only visually indistinguishable from one another,” Marcia Seligson wrote back in 1973 in The Eternal Bliss Machine: America’s Way of Wedding (William Morrow), “but all taste like wet wallpaper.”

In the two decades since, the classic white American wedding cake has given way to any number of possibilities.

Witness Martha Stewart, the decorating and food maven. In her book Entertaining (Crown Publishers, 1982), she writes: “Thank goodness the traditional, but insipid, white wedding cake has now been replaced by a succulent carrot cake or a moist spice cake or the densest, most devilish chocolate cake.”

Her personal favorite is layers of chocolate-almond and orange-almond cake frosted with Grand Marnier Italian meringue butter cream.

Ann Amernick, a Washington, D.C.-based baker, custom designs Victorian- style cakes with hand-painted sugar flowers. “Until recently,” she says, “many people thought they had no choice, that the only possible wedding cake was a pound cake with white frosting.”

The great wedding cake transformation is partly a result of the great food revolution that has taken place in America during the past two decades. But other factors are at work.

For one, the general trend toward more self-expression, more individualism. “People are paying attention to detail, and the details make the wedding unique,” Stewart says. “They want their favorite cake, usually made into a traditional-looking wedding cake.”

For another, brides and grooms tend to be older these days. Consequently, their tastes tend to be more sophisticated.

New-wave bakers such as Sylvia Weinstock, a premier cake maker in New York City, have helped nudge customers away from the traditional.

“I tell my clients that a wedding cake doesn’t have to be the standard dry white cake nobody likes,” Weinstock says. “A wedding cake should be scrumptious.”

She offers chocolate or hazelnut layers with mocha filling, or lemon layers with lemon mousse and fresh raspberries. And her cakes are a feast for the eyes as well as the tastebuds.

Weinstock is known for matching the flowers on her cakes with the flowers on the tables. She does it so well — she actually dissects real flowers in her quest for authenticity — it is hard to tell the difference between the real flowers and the sugar ones without biting into them.

While some American bakers have injected personality into wedding cakes, others have imported foreign traditions. Take Gary Rulli, who works at Pasticceria Rulli in Larkspur, Calif. He studied pastry making in Milan and specializes in European-style wedding cakes. His offerings include the St. Honore, an involved French concoction of puff pastry, vanilla cake, cream puffs, custard, and chocolate and regular whipped creams; and the Crostata di Frutta, an elaborate Italian custard and fruit tart.

Even cheesecake can be dressed up for a wedding. About a third of Lastick’s customers request it, so she features two versions: one a combination of devil’s food cake, cheesecake and walnut caramel sauce; the other a combination of yellow sponge cake, cheesecake and apricot preserves.

Berenbaum has crafted what she calls a Golden Glory Wedding Cheesecake, swirled with apricot and topped with white chocolate cream-cheese frosting.

In addition to elegant, romantic, flower-covered cakes, novelty cakes also are popular.

Becky Sikes, owner of Ida Mae’s Cakes of Distinction in Jacksboro, Texas, says her establishment can “work with any flavor you want.”

For a health-food fanatic, Ida Mae’s once made a wheat- and sugar-free cake. (Their regular cakes don’t contain any milk, butter or egg yolks.) It was made with rice and oat flours and a cream-cheese-and-maple-syrup frosting.

One groom, a hunting enthusiast, requested a cake with an elk bugling. “I think that’s the mating call,” Sikes says.

For a groom whose bride wanted a castle, William Greenberg Jr., of his eponymous bakery in New York City, built a wedding-cake castle. For a couple who met while white-water rafting, he fashioned a miniature scene with people cascading down a waterfall on rubber rafts.

All these wedding cakes are works of art and they are treated as such. The Wedding Cake Gallery in Coral Gables, entices customers with the slogan: “Come See a Work of Art That Is a Piece of Cake.” In a marble-floored, chandelier-lighted “gallery,” 40 cakes are exhibited at any given time.

Then there are miniature works of art. The tiny-food craze that swept the United States during the late ’80s did not bypass wedding cakes.

Some Crust, in Claremont, Calif., bakes “tiny tier” cakes — perfect miniature wedding cakes less than 6 inches high. Originally created for Valentine’s Day, they are perfect for proposals and anniversaries.

CAKE CONTACTS

For more information about wedding cakes mentioned in the accompanying story, contact:

— Ann Amernick, 1-301-718-0434.

— William Greenberg Jr., 1377 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10021; 1-212-861-1340.

— Ida Mae’s Cakes of Distinction, Box 365, Jacksboro, Texas 76458; 1-817-567-3439.

— Pasticceria Rulli, 464 Magnolia Ave., Larkspur, Calif. 94939; 1-415-924-7478.

— Le Royale Icing, 329 S. Ridgeland Ave., Oak Park, Ill. 60302; 1-708-386-4175.

— Some Crust, 119 Yale Ave., Claremont, Calif. 91711; 1-909-621-9772.

— The Wedding Cake Gallery, 30 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables, Fla. 33134; 1-305-444-6772; hours 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Thursday; Friday and Saturday until 7 p.m.; admission is free.

— Sylvia Weinstock Cakes Ltd., 273 Church St., New York, N.Y. 10013; 1-212-925-6698.

—-SHARON KAPNICK