Royal Wedding Talk... The Wedding Cake

We have enjoyed following all of the information on the Royal Wedding, what will we do after it’s all over?! (smiles) As someone who loves the “food” part, of course, I found myself interested in what the wedding cakes will be served for the Royal Wedding.

From my reading I learned that one of Queen Elizabeth’s favorite cakes is Chocolate Biscuit Cake, however, she is not the only one who loves this cake! It is reported that this was always on the menu when Prince William would be attending afternoon tea with the Queen. Prince William has ordered this as one of the wedding cakes to be served on the 29th.

In keeping with tradition, however, English wedding cakes are generally fruit cakes that contain nuts, dried fruit and brandy. We have a delicious fruitcake recipe that we had thought about serving at our Royal Tea party, unfortunately though, time got away from us, so we were not able to make it as the cake needs to be made at least 8 weeks in advance and doused with Brandy every week.

In an attempt to honor Princess Diana’s memory, we opted to make her fruitcake instead. (Click here for Recipe) For Diana’s wedding in 1981, her cake was made by baker, David Avery. Princess Diana was just 19 years old when she met David Avery, Baker from the Royal Navy Cookery School. The school had been asked to prepare the cake because of Prince Charle’s Navy experience.

The official royal wedding cake was a rich 5 tier fruitcake, that stood 5 foot and 4 inches tall and was 3 feet at its widest point on the bottom layer. It took 14 weeks to design. Just in case of an accident an identical wedding cake was created! The cake was iced with royal icing…naturally!

Confectioner David Avery treasures a photograph of himself and his proudest achievement – the five-tier official royal wedding cake which Charles and Diana cut together on their wedding day in 1981. Avery says he was touched to see how excited and nervous the young bride-to-be was on their first meeting, stating he was every bit as excited and nervous as she was! David went on to transform the second tier of the wedding cake into Prince William's christening cake, and then to concoct the young prince's first birthday cake too.