Curiously cutting edge royal memorabilia

Wedding cakes are a curious phenomenon and a rare opportunity for bakers to go totally over the top. But Royal wedding cakes take the biscuit in terms of elaborate decoration and conspicuous excess.

If you’re following the Royal Wedding news, you’ll have heard that William and Kate have opted for ‘his and hers’ wedding cakes. Hers will be the official multi-tiered fruit cake, decorated with edible flowers - representing the emblems of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland...










His choice, of an unbaked chocolate biscuit cake by McVitie’s, is not quite as curious as it seems: In 1923, The Duke of York and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later George VI and The Queen Mother) picked the Scottish company to make their cake, in recognition of the bride’s Scottish roots.





So, what are we to expect? The ‘bride cake’ for Queen Victoria’s wedding in 1840 was nearly 3 metres wide and weighed more than 135 kg. Even the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall’s 2005 nuptials boasted a cake that included 1,080 eggs, 100 kg of marzipan and 36 bottles of booze.

A fair part of any royal cake will be sliced up to be presented in commemorative tins for the guests. A piece of cake from the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana fetched £1,000 at an auction in 2008.




Of course, every wedding cake also needs an appropriate knife, and we may have found just the thing: This curiously collectable vintage cake knife from ShopCurious commemorates the Queen’s Coronation in 1953.

Presented in its original gold and red embossed box, this charming piece of cutlery is in excellent condition, and would make a lovely wedding gift - though I’m not sure it was designed to cut through a cake made from frozen chocolate biscuits.

Are you?