Royal wedding fever keeps Cambridge bakery busy baking scones
CAMBRIDGE — Scones, scones, and more scones.
British Pride Bakery in Cambridge will have made more than 15,000 of them by week’s end, all in anticipation of Saturday’s royal wedding across the pond.
And this time around, the shop is prepared for the special occasion, said baker Aaron Armstrong, whose father owns the business.
“The first royal wedding that happened (between Prince William and Kate) we were completely unprepared,” Armstrong said on Thursday. “We figured we’d sell a few more scones but we baked for 24 hours, around the clock just making scones (and) just trying to
keep up with the demand.”
Armstrong is from Plymouth, in southwest England. He moved to Canada 10 years ago and has worked at the bakery for eight. Despite his British origins, Armstrong said his family was never really enthusiastic about the royals.
“It was always a thing that was around,” he said. “Half the families would be nuts for it, the other half wouldn’t be so into it.
“Then we moved to Canada and we realized it was almost bigger here than it was there at some points.”
Needless to say, this weekend the bakery is fully prepared for Saturday’s royal wedding between Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle. The two will marry at St. George’s Chapel on the Windsor Castle grounds at 7 a.m. eastern time.
“We actually ran a competition online to make a special edition scone, which the winner was the lemon and ginger crumble,” he said.
“The lemon comes from the wedding cake — it’s going to be a lemon wedding cake I’ve been told — the ginger on top is for Harry, obviously.”
The bakery, which made sure to stock up on jam and clotted cream to accompany the scones, is also baking some Scottish favourites. A large portion of the bakery’s clientele is actually Scottish in origin, said Armstrong.
“Empire biscuits,” said Armstrong. “We’re making 1,000 for this weekend because we know they’re going to be going out the door like crazy.”
Sure enough, on Thursday morning Cambridge resident Laurie Thompson was at the bakery to get some of the biscuits. She was born in Scotland but moved to Canada with her family when she was a young girl. She’s hosting a party for eight at her home Saturday morning in celebration of the royal affair.
“I’m going to be up at 4:30 a.m. because coverage starts at 4:30 a.m. on some channels,” she said. “I am a true, diehard royal wedding watcher.”
As for Armstrong, who has been putting in 15 hour days this week, the chance of him catching the event live on TV is slim.
“We’ll probably be sleeping through the wedding,” he said. “We’re going to be tired from making scones.”