Royal Wedding and Cake!

Liza's Wedding Cake

I'm planning to go to bed in just a few minutes and wake up in time to catch the Wedding-of-the-Century, the Royal Wedding of Prince William to lovely Kate Middleton.  I'm setting my alarm for 4:00 a.m. and putting it across the room, so I have to get out of bed to turn it off.  While I watch the procession and wedding ceremonies, I'll be frosting a little birthday cake for later in the day, and I'll be wondering just what the Royal Wedding Cake will be.  I've read that it is the traditional English fruit cake with cream and a white frosting.  While those of us here in "the states" would likely not choose a fruit cake to celebrate a wedding, it is the cake of choice for weddings across the pond. 

Queen Victoria's Wedding Cake

Queen Victoria commissioned the first tiered wedding cake, initiating a tradition to be embraced all over the world, and which has taken on huge signficance for subsequent generations.  (History of the wedding cake, here.) The tiered cake, now, is an iconic symbol of the wedding, second only to the bride's wedding dress.  For one course leading up to my masters thesis, I wrote a paper comparing the symbolism of the the wedding dress and the wedding cake.  There are many correlations between the two which I personally find fascinating!

Katie's and Bill's Wedding Cake, October 2005

Despite the fact that I am divorced, I love weddings.  I especially love wedding cakes.  I made my daughter Katie's wedding cake for her marriage to Bill in 2005, and I look forward to making Tricia's when she and Jeff marry in Septemer of 2012.  When I think of my own simple wedding so many years ago, when Iwas only 20-years old, there was no tiered cake.  We were young and only had a small buffet at my parent's home, and ours was a sheet cake.  I think that's part of the reason why baking beautiful cakes for people is such an obsession for me.  I want to commemorate special days for special people. 

Carrie's Cupcake Wedding Cake

I can only image the pressure, at this moment, on the pastry chefs who are now assembling the most important cake of their lives.  Most likely, the press will focus on so many other aspects of the wedding, but the moments I'd love to witness will be when Will and Kate see their cake for the first time, when they cut the cake and share that first bite.  I hope it is something enchanting, one aspect of their wedding day that will bring happy memories back to them for many anniversaries to come.

Best wishes to Will and Kate!  May they enjoy health and happiness for the rest of their enchanted lives.



Wedding cake history: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/food/2009/07/the-strange-history-of-the-wedding-cake/

Photos:  mine, plus Queen Victoria's cake: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHaWP36k9jhPwqRn49YNNsDWHcttj1BlvQxoVJGn0RCG_s9Bf5SJ766XFowChHzkf-MtTaO2EH8_GbKh009jXtqjbn2U5c4Xhe-DI3wWMhhHZDDBW8mMbV4ZrLdH8JSLyN-SnkIxPuX4s/s1600/Queen+victoria.jpg