Royal Family Mourns Passing of Former Chief Baker Eddie Spence

The royal family will no doubt be mourning the death of their former chief royal baker, Eddie Spence, who sadly passed away aged 91 in early July.

During his 71-year career, master cake decorator Eddie created a plethora of sweet treats and wedding cakes for senior members of the royal family.

As their go-to baker, he was the mastermind behind Charles and Diana’s opulent wedding cake, and he once spent an entire day beating eggs for the late Queen Elizabeth’s wedding cake.

Beyond this, he created magnificent cakes for the late queen’s Silver and Diamond Jubilee, a special commission for the Queen and Prince Philip’s 70th wedding anniversary in 2017, and a wedding cake for Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew.

His favourite creation was nonetheless the cake he designed for Princess Margaret’s wedding to Antony Armstrong-Jones. “I remember receiving a letter telling me she wanted it to be traditional, so that’s what we did,” Eddie told the DailyMail. “The detail on that cake was amazing and it took a lot of hard work.”

In 2000, Eddie was awarded an MBE for services to craft sugar in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list.

“When the letter offering me an MBE first arrived in 1999 I wasn’t going to accept it, because I was feeling very down after my first wife had sadly passed away just the day before,” he said.

“Eventually though my son talked me round and we went up to accept it. It was really amazing, because the Queen knew all about me, and we actually had quite a long chat.”

He finished by adding: “At the end of getting my medal and to thank her, I said ‘Thanks pet’. I always call everybody “pet” and of course, right away she laughed and she wrote it down on her book. That was the biggest and most enjoyable moment.”

The veteran cake decorator retired in 2018 at the age of 85. At the time he said his hands would shake too much, preventing him from doing detailed piping work.

The Prince and Princess of Wales enlisted the help of master baker Fiona Cairns to make their splendid eight-tier wedding cake.

While William and Kate chose a traditional fruit cake for their wedding, topped with marzipan and royal icing – just like William’s father King Charles and Queen Camilla – they also had a more unconventional chocolate biscuit cake which is said to have been William’s favourite treat when visiting his late grandmother Queen Elizabeth II.

“In many ways, I would say that Kate designed her wedding cake, because she knew very clearly what she wanted and did not want. The ideas came from her, we had meetings with her, and the brief was from Kate,” Fiona told Town & Country.

Source: DailyMail, Town & Country, Shutterstock, Getty Images