The Saga Of Royal Wedding Cakes

We have all been to a wedding with mouth-watering cakes to look forward to and devour at the end of the ceremony. The Royals take it many steps further and make sure their wedding cakes are not just for tradition but make a statement for itself. Their cakes weigh around 135Kg to more than 230 Kg and made to serve more than 2,000 people with slices cut, packaged and sent to charities and organizations close to them as well as the guests in attendance.

But wedding cakes were not always a part of the traditional wedding. The origin of this can be traced back ancient Rome were the groom used to break a loaf of barley bread over bride’s head to symbolize fertility where in the guests would pick up the crumbs of bread and take it for some good luck. In medieval England,small buns were arranged in a huge pile, the challenge was for the bride and groom to kiss over the pile without knocking it down which is said to bring life time of prosperity. Interestingly it was pies which was used earlier instead of cakes but slowly cakes surpassed pies in popularity. It was Queen Victoria wedding to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Cotha in the year 1840who set the standard for white wedding cakes which symbolizes luxury and purity, as refined sugar was not easily accessible in Britain in Victorian era. So, Queen Victoria’s cake was first of it kind to feature edible sugar sculptures. The cake was two tiers and covered in white royal icing. Weighing at 135Kg, the English plum cake was true to its size and set a trend of wedding cakes among the Royals. Followed by this extravagant affair, wedding cakes became an important part of the wedding nuptials.

What we saw in every Royal wedding which followed was a variation of flavors and style of wedding cakes. Be it Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer’s wedding which saw a five tiered magnificent fruitcake weighing more than 90 kgs and decorations which included family coat of arms, the couple’s initials and flowers or the recent most Prince Harry and Meghan Markle which gave us a lemon flavored sponge cake soaked it in an elderflower cordial syrup which was then covered it in Swiss meringue buttercream flavored with elderflower and covered in 150 fresh flowers .The cakes were surprisingly not all stacked on top of each other, but arranged atop footed, golden bowls and a mirrored tray.

But my personal favorite in terms of looks and feel was the cake in the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton (2011) or as they are knownfrom their wedding day as Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

It was made by Fiona Cairns. The cake was a eight-tiered traditional fruit cake which stood at 3 feet talland was decorated with cream and white icing in the ‘Joseph Lambeth’ technique – which is based on the centuries old English tradition of “over piping”, where rows and rows of intricate piped details, scrolls and garlands are created. Cairns’ team of 50 chefs spent five weeks constructing the 900 delicate sugar-paste flowers that decorated each tier. A further 17 sugar flowers, that had special meaning to the couple, were added, including sweet William and myrtle, which symbolizes love and marriage. Cairns was also given a piece of lace from The Duchess’ wedding dress (unbeknownst to Cairns at the time) which was copied on to the cake itself.

Who could have thought a dessert will have such a journey of its own in the Royal history.We are sure we will be seeing a lot more of Royal Cakes in coming years and hopefully a lot more variety too.