Royal Cake Recipes

Royal cake recipes became common in Canada's kitchens throughout the 1800s, 1900s, and some are popular to present day.

Members of our current Royal Family and their ancestors have been honored by having commemorative dessert cakes named after them.

Don't be misled, though, these are fine, rich-tasting cakes that are suitable for any occasion and perfect for serving on holiday events and at parties. They are guaranteed to create interest and conversation.

Old Fashioned Royal Cake Recipes

Mom's Recipe Scrapbooks (c. 1920s)

Victoria Sandwich Cakes

Ingredients: 6 ounces of flour, 4 ounces of granulated sugar, 2 ounces of butter, 3 eggs, 1 teaspoonful of baking powder, a little milk, jam of your choice, pinch of salt.

Method:

Stir the sugar and yolks of eggs together until thick and creamy, then add the butter melted. Pass the flour, baking powder, and a good pinch of salt through a sieve, stir it lightly into the rest of the ingredients, and add milk by degrees until the mixture drops readily from the spoon.

Now, whisk the whites of eggs stiffly, stir them in as lightly as possible, and pour the preparation into a well-buttered pudding tin.

Bake in a moderately hot oven (350°F) for about 20 minutes, let it cool, split in halves, spread thickly with jam, replace the parts, and press lightly together.

Cut into finger-shaped pieces, arrange them in groups of three, letting the layers cross each other, sprinkle liberally with granulated sugar, and serve.

Prince Albert Cake

One half cup butter, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 egg, 1 cup raisins (which have been boiled), 2 tablespoons molasses, 1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon and cloves, 1 cup sour milk, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon vanilla, pinch of salt, 2 cups flour; bake in moderate oven (350°F) about 20 minutes.

King Edward Cake

1/2 cup butter, 1 cup brown sugar, 3 eggs well beaten, 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup sour milk, 1 teaspoon soda, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 tablespoons molasses, 1 cup raisins (boiled in hot water). Mix as usual. Put raisins in last of all. (Bake in moderate 350°F oven until done.)

Old Fashioned Royal Cake Recipe

The Art of Living in Australia (1893)

Prince of Wales Cake

1/4 pound Flour
1/4 pound Cornflour
1 gill (1/2 cup) Milk
1/2 teaspoonful Baking Powder
2 ounces Butter
1 Egg
Flavoring of choice
2 ounces Sugar

Mix the flour, cornflour, and baking powder together, beat the butter and sugar to a cream, beat in the egg, flavoring, and milk, then the flour, &c., and continue to beat for five minutes.

Butter some small bun or muffn tins, half fill them with the mixture, put into a moderate oven (350°F) and bake for about twenty minutes; stand on a sieve till cold.

Old Fashioned Royal Cake Recipe

Mom's Recipe Scrapbooks (c. 1920s)

The Queen Elizabeth Cake

1 cup boiling water
1 cup chopped pitted dates
1 teaspoon baking soda

Pour boiling water over chopped dates in a bowl, stir in the baking soda, and set aside until the following ingredients are prepared.

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter or shortening
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

In a large bowl, mix sugar, butter, eggs, and vanilla together until smooth and light. Fold in sifted flour, baking powder, and salt. Add chopped nuts and the date mixture. Stir until batter is smooth.

Scrape batter into a greased 9x13-inch cake pan and bake at 350°F for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the cake tests done when a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool. Ice using the Elizabeth cake icing recipe below.

Elizabeth Cake Icing

5 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons butter
5 tablespoons table cream
3/4 cup shredded coconut or nuts of choice

Gently boil brown sugar, butter, and cream together in a saucepan for about 3 minutes. Spread evenly over cake, then sprinkle with coconut. Let cool. Cut in squares for serving.

Old Fashioned Royal Cake Recipes

Buckeye Cookery And Practical Housekeeping (1877)
Cookery (1895)

Queen Victoria Cake

One pound flour, one of sugar, half pound butter, four eggs, one nutmeg, lemon if desired, gill of wine, one of brandy, one of sweet cream, one pound raisins, two teaspoons baking powder in the flour.

Rub the butter, sugar, and yolks of eggs to a perfect cream, beating a long time; add sweet cream, then flour, and fruit the last thing; bake an hour and a half (350°F).

This royal cake recipe makes two three-pint pans full. —Miss. Mattie B. Fullington, Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping

Queen Victoria Buns With Candied Peel

10 ounces flour, 3 ounces sugar, 3 ounces butter, 2 eggs, 1/2 gill milk, 1 teaspoon baking powder, rind of 1/2 a lemon, 1 ounce candied peel.

Rub together the flour, sugar and butter, add grated lemon rind, and baking powder. Beat the eggs and mix them with the milk.

Mix all together, drop in small pieces onto a buttered pan, and bake in good oven (350°F) about fifteen minutes.

The candied peel should be cut into slices, and one slice placed on each bun before baking. —Cookery

The 1934 Royal Wedding Cake

Mom's Recipe Scrapbooks (c. 1920s)

Mom's vintage scrapbook contains newspaper clippings of a royal wedding that took place before the days of television, back when the newspapers and radio broadcasts were the popular media for reporting on world events.

Royal weddings were a huge event in Canada and throughout the British Empire at the time. People wanted something upbeat to focus on that would help lift their spirits during the 1930s, and the height of the Great Depression.

The marriage of the youngest son of King George V and Queen Mary, Prince George (1902-1942), the Duke of Kent, and Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark (1906-1968) took place at Westminster Abbey on November 9, 1934.

Afterwards, a formal wedding breakfast was held in the State Apartments at Buckingham Palace where guests could at last view the magnificently ornate wedding cake in all its towering glory as pictured below.

However, similar to the way in which Prince William's chocolate groom's cake captured the public's attention in 2011, another unique cake became newsworthy when it was served at the royal wedding reception in 1934.

Historical Royal Cake Recipe

The Queens Closet Opened (1658)

Renaissance Royal Princess Cake

To make a Cake the way of the Royal Princeſs,
the Lady Elizabeth, daughter to King Charles the firſt.

Take half a peck of Flower, half a pint of Roſe-water, a pint of Ale yeaſt, a pint of Cream, boil it, a pound and a half of Butter, ſix Eggs (leave out the whites), four pound of Currans, one half pound of Sugar, one Nutmeg, and a little Salt, work it very well, and let it ſtand half an hour by the fire, and then work it again, and then make it up, and let it ſtand an hour and a half in the Oven; let not your Oven be too hot.

About the Royal Cake Recipes

Popular royals from the present and times past have had their names immortalized in the old fashioned royal cake recipes featured on this page:

The Victoria Sandwich Cakes, Queen Victoria Cake, and Queen Victoria Buns were named to honor Her Majesty Queen Victoria (1819-1901) who reigned 63 years as Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and almost 25 years as Empress of India.

The Prince Albert Cake was named to honor HRH Prince Albert (1819-1861), the Prince Consort and beloved husband of Queen Victoria.

Both the Prince of Wales Cake and the King Edward Cake were named to honor Queen Victoria's eldest son, His Majesty King Edward VII (1841-1910), formerly the Prince of Wales who reigned for 9 years after his mother's death.

The Elizabeth Cake is said to honor Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth (1900-2002), The Queen Consort and wife of King George VI, and styled Elizabeth The Queen Mother after her husband's death in 1952.

The Renaissance Era's Royal Princess Cake honors Princess Elizabeth Stuart of England (1635-1650), daughter of King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria.