Princess Diana’s Wedding Cake: A 70s Tin-Pan Favorite

Princess Diana Wedding cake reproduced in the lobby of a Michigan hotel.

Princess Diana Wedding cake reproduced in the lobby of a Michigan hotel.

While in Michigan, I also got to taste what was allegedly the most requested confection of the 80s, a royal sweet.

As is so often true with Americans, there is a mild obsession with the British Royal Family, and Princess Diana really took the cake, no pun intended. There’s currently an exhibit on her in a Grand Rapids museum which I didn’t go to see, but the hotel where I stayed did offer dessert that was made from the exact recipe of the wedding cake served to guests at the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

In the lobby there was even a reproduction of the five-foot tall cake, complete with a sugar-spun version of a royal crest. It was described as a “fresh fruit cake of apples, bananas and pineapples, layered with cream cheese icing and served with a cold banana saboyan.”

I imagine any sour cream would have suggested Camilla.

Diana’s wedding cake tasted exactly like it.

The second I bit into it, I was brought back in time, beyond 1981. This had a retro American comfort food taste, my mouth fighting the idea of it being a royal sweet. I had eaten this before, in far more common form, defrosted from a tin-pan, watching new episodes of Sanford and Son. Back then, nobody didn’t like Sara Lee‘s Banana Cake, even young Diana apparently.


Categories: Regional Food, Royal Families

1 reply »

  1. You are combining three of my favorite things here! Royalty, first ladies/presidents and food! I was 7 when the Charles and Diana wedding took place and somehow persuaded my parents to let me stay up all night to watch. I think I’ve stayed up to see every other royal wedding, funeral and jubilee since. And now, I’ll know what to eat while I’m watching the next royal wedding.

    Take care,

    Jake

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