The Buckingham Cakes Mission
Our mission is to bring these delicious cakes to food lovers all over the world. At Buckingham Cakes, we select only the most quintessential English recipes, find the best quality ingredients, and bake each cake with loving care. Each fruit cake tin is finished with luxurious gift packaging. We then ship the cake to wherever cake aficionados are waiting in the UK and EU, for their favourite English delicacy.
Our Bakery Location
Our English fruit cakes are hand-made in a modern family-run nut-free bakery with BRCGS certification, located in Somerset, whilst our warehouse and offices are in the small historic town of Bradford on Avon, surrounded by rolling hills and green fields.
Featured fruit cake collection
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Classic English Fruit Cake 750g
Regular price £19.95Regular priceUnit price per -
Whisky Fruit Cake 750g
Regular price £19.95Regular priceUnit price per -
Cherry & Kirsch Fruit Cake 750g
Regular price £19.95Regular priceUnit price per -
Spiced Rum Fruit Cake 750g
Regular price £19.95Regular priceUnit price per
History of Fruit Cake
The origins of fruit cake in England date back to the 17th century. In the 1600’s the Europeans started to import sugar cane from the tropics. In Britain, sugar gradually changed from being a luxury to an everyday commodity. The affordable price of sugar was the key to preserving fruit well beyond harvest time, making it possible to add fruit to a cake and keep the cake for many months. Hence, the concept of ‘fruit cake’ was developed.
Originally called ‘plum cake’, the cake is richly flavoured, made with a mix of dried vine fruits (sultanas, currants and raisins), candied fruits (typically cherries, orange and lemon peel), flour, eggs, butter and brown sugar.
The Buckingham Cakes recipe dates back to 1890. The cake is handmade, still following the original recipe and using no artificial colours or flavours.
In England, fruit cake remains very popular all year round to eat with ‘afternoon tea’; a tradition still observed by many English families, at home and in teashops and restaurants. The English often make a fruit cake several months before Christmas, which gives it time to mature for the festival in December. Fruit cake matures like a good cheese, its flavour improving with age.
Fruit cake facts
- In the 1700’s the cake was traditionally baked at the end of the harvest. It was said to bring good luck if the cake wasn’t eaten until the beginning of the following harvest.
- In the 1800’s eating fruit cake was banned for a while because it was considered ‘sinful’, being too rich and delicious.
- Fruit cake is loved by British royalty. When Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in 1840, her wedding cake was a huge fruit cake. More recently, King Charles, then Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer had fruit cake at their wedding in 1981.
- Current Prince and Princess of Wales, William and Catherine, also celebrated their wedding with fruit cake when they married in 2011.
- American astronauts took a slice of fruit cake with them on the Apollo 11 spacecraft for the first landing on the moon in 1969.
History of English Afternoon Tea
England’s afternoon tea ritual started in the 1840s and, according to legend, it’s all down to Anna Maria Russell, the seventh Duchess of Bedford. Afternoon tea was a way of having a snack between lunch and the evening meal, which was typically not until 8 pm.
The Duchess would get hungry in late afternoon and would have a refreshment of tea and cake to dispel the hunger pangs. Friends of the Duchess joined in the ritual, and it spread through aristocratic circles. At first, tea was only for those of the rich upper class who lived in large houses with beautiful gardens. Black tea was a special delicacy imported from India, and only the wealthy could afford it. The society ladies would dress in their best dresses made from the latest fashion plates and enjoy cake with their tea, whilst catching up on the latest gossip.
At the height of her reign, Queen Victoria would entertain hundreds of guests at Buckingham Palace with formal afternoon tea gatherings she called ‘tea receptions’. No doubt the guests also enjoyed fruit cake. As supplies of tea became more plentiful in the early 20th century, the taking of afternoon tea became a popular ritual all over England.
It’s hard to beat the delicious combination of tea and cake at four o’clock in the afternoon. Or, as 19th Century author Henry James put it: “There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea”.
Buckingham-cakes
Classic English Fruit Cake 750g
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