Le Cordon Bleu London Celebrates the 1947 Royal Wedding in ITV Documentary

Press release, Tuesday 24th October 2017.

Le Cordon Bleu, the leading global network of culinary arts and hospitality management institutes, has been working on a phenomenal project of recreating the Royal Wedding Cake which is featured in 'A Very Royal Wedding', due to air 9pm Monday, 30^th October on ITV.

A Very Royal Wedding celebrates the 70^th wedding anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. Brought to life through stunning colour archive, and with access to exclusive behind the scenes footage, this landmark documentary tells the story of how the wedding captured the hearts of a nation. It celebrates the contributions of all those who made the wedding such a unique occasion, from those on the inside, including members of the royal family, through to the jewellers and dressmakers. At the heart of the film are stunning recreations of the engagement ring and mammoth nine foot wedding cake!

Head Pâtisserie Chef Julie Walsh of Le Cordon Bleu London led the exciting project, and spent several months in early 2017 to recreate the Royal Wedding cake. The fruit cake was meticulously made to size and clothed in white royal icing with different tiers weighing 500lb just as the original. Chef Julie worked with a team of chefs and students to research and use what they could find from archives and old pictures to come up with the full recipe and recreate the entire cake including the intricate decorations. Chef Julie states that, “It was truly an honour to be asked to replicate this incredible cake. The project had its challenges due to the sheer size and scale of the cake. Even from the very first stages, to bake a cake of this size was immense. Specially designed tins were produced to support the cake as it baked. Every detail had to be hand drawn to form a template as no original existed, which was then piped to ensure each tier exactly replicated the original royal iced wedding cake. The small team spent hundreds of hours piping and modelled every meticulous detail by hand based on the original photographs available.”

Various tiers of the cake will be distributed to pensioners at the Royal Hospital Chelsea as well as other nursing homes and charities. The top tier will be gifted to The Queen to celebrate her wedding anniversary coming up next month..

A Very Royal Wedding documentary will air on ITV - 30^th October 2017 9.00pm.

Find out exactly how Chef Julie baked the Queen's royal cake here.

Pictures credited to Harry Page.