We have instructions for a dramatic tiered version, if you’re going full Mrs. Patmore for this royal wedding. (If so, see you bright and early Saturday morning!) You can make the cake layers ahead and freeze them, and then assemble and frost it later. The base recipe makes two 10” cakes, which is more manageable than building a tiered cake, but still 4 total layers, because we’re not messing around, this is CAKE. Either way, you should probably eat it for breakfast, wearing something feathery on your head, while bidding furiously online for a commemorative mug—something, anything!—to remember this special moment. And it will be a special moment, if the cake signifies anything.
In the history of royal wedding cakes, as with royal everything, things have been stiff. The cake, per British custom dating back to pre-refrigeration days, is usually a dense, brick fruitcake that can be made months ahead. The frosting and decorations (royal seals and family insignia in marzipan) budge as little as the Queen’s Guard. They do. Not. Budge.
Exhibit A, the towering cake from Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana’s 1981 wedding:
Photo by David Levenson/Getty Images
Fun fact: In 2015, a (frozen) slice of this fruitcake sold for $1,375 at auction, and another one is on the auction block in June.
Exhibit B, the 8-tiered fruitcake from Prince William and Kate Middleton’s 2011 wedding:
Photo by John Stillwell/PA Images via Getty Images
Fun fact: Per the cake’s baker, Fiona Cairns, they cut the cake and served it for breakfast before the wedding, which is why we don’t get to revel in wedding photos of royals awkwardly slicing cake together. And, uh, it “matured” for two months before the wedding. Again: fruitcake. The top tier of the cake was saved and served to lucky guests at Prince George’s christening in 2013.
Which is why we’re more excited than usual for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s cake—an actual cake cake! Something fresh, actually delicious, and perishable. A reminder that some occasions are best celebrated in the moment, not decades later by the highest bidder. I still hope, however, that they eat it for breakfast.
Get the recipe for BA’s royal wedding cake:
A beautiful spring wedding cake inspired by the upcoming royal wedding.
