My Birthday Princess - cake anyone?

My beautiful baby girl turned 24 today. How on earth did that happen? In a blink of the eye, Lucy went from a screaming, colicky baby to the blushing bride to be.

Over the last 24 years my super Mum, Lucy’s Granny has made all 23 birthday cakes. Lucy’s first birthday cake was a teddy, the second a butterfly and then since then we have had all sorts of wonderful creations including a Robin Hood Story Book, marble cake with marble icing and a pink cake, pink icing and a pink beetle car ( Herbie) on top.

Lucy's 18th birthday cake 

Lucy's 2nd birthday cake

This got me thinking about the background to the history of birthday cakes. I discovered that the birthday cake has been part of birthday celebrations in Western European countries since the middle of the 19th century. 

In classical Roman culture “cakes” were made as flat rounds, made with flour containing nuts, leavened with yeast, sweetened with honey were occasionally served at special birthdays, but more often at weddings in Ancient Greece.

Coincidentally, today also happens to be my Mum and Dad’s 52^nd wedding anniversary! So the cake my Mum made for Lucy’s 24^th birthday today also included a silver wedding shoe from their wedding cake.  See image below - the rich tapestry of life eh? 

During the 17th century, the birthday cake appeared in its contemporary form. However, these elaborate cakes, which possessed many aspects of contemporary cakes (such as multiple layers, icing and decorations) were only available to the very wealthy!

The tradition of adding candles onto a birthday cake is attributed to early Greeks who used to place lit candles on cakes to make them glow like the moon. It was also believed that candles were placed on the cake because people believed that the smoke of the candle carried their prayers to gods. Others believe that the custom originated in Germany where people used to place a large candle in the centre of the cake to symbolize ‘the light of life’.

Lucy’s name - Lucy Sarah means light princess – and she really is the light of my life.

So that links me nicely from birthday cake to wedding cakes.

Mark and Lucy’s wedding cake will be made with love by my Mum and Richard. The plan is to have several tiers of sponge and a fruit cake too,  Granny’s quick reccie for a shopping list of approximately 20 eggs, about 3lbs flour,  2 ½ lbs sugar and 2 ½ lbs butter for the sponges alone! The plan involves borrowing Anne’s large cake tin, and the icing still to be confirmed. Then there’s also quantities of currents, sultanas, raisins, cherries, mixed spice, almonds, treacle, flour, butter, brown sugar, eggs and a snifter of brandy for the traditional fruit cake layer! 

Maybe we will pop a little candle on the wedding cake somewhere, like the early Greeks, to carry a prayer for a long and happy marriage for the Bride and Groom.