I don’t know about your kids, but whenever a birthday rolls around at my house, my kids ask for whatever popular cartoon of that day is to grace their cake. This year, my daughter asked for Hello Kitty, and my son asked for the Llama from Fortnite.
But one little girl from London, England is making headlines after she asked her parents for a cake featuring the beheading of Anne of Boelyn.
For those who don’t remember history so swell, here is a quick recap:
Anne of Boleyn was married to King Henry the VIII who had Anne executed after being accused of adultery, incest, and treason in 1536. None of that was true, Henry was trying to get out of his marriage, and divorce wasn’t exactly an option.
Anne’s daughter would go on to become the famous Queen Elizabeth I in 1558 and ruled over England and Ireland.
Don’t feel bad about not know that bit of history. Lots of people don’t pay attention in history class.
The BBC seems to have noticed, too, because they put together a children’s show called horrible Histories that pairs gory historical events with fun music and comedy.
The creator of the show is Edmund Kingsley, and it was his curious daughter who requested the macabre confection.
Edmund Kingsley and his wife, Anna Morrissey, took the cake request seriously, and together they spent three days building the coolest (ok maybe weirdest) birthday cake you’ve ever seen.
Using the magic of fondant, the couple created a hilarious scene of Anne of Boelyn at her execution with King Henry the VII and baby Queen Elizabeth the I in attendance.
During lockdown, the family found themselves relying on the BBC to get their minds off of things and the kids show Horrible Histories became a favorite — as well as the inspiration for the birthday cake.
“During lockdown, there was lots of Horrible Histories because of good old CBBC. When our brains were fried from doing too much homeschooling, we’d rely on CBBC to do some of the work as well, and Horrible Histories is fantastic, what those guys do is so brilliant,”
Kingsley posted an image of the unusual birthday cake to Twitter, and people, of course, loved it.
In a series of hilarious exchanges, Twitter gave this macabre, morbid kid cake a stamp of approval.
It was Dr. Amanda-Jane Carr, though, who summed up what we’re all thinking, “nothing says happy birthday like a beheaded princess!”
Not only are the parents getting rave reviews for getting their kid to love and appreciate history, but they also started sharing their own odd birthday cakes in turn.
This user, Vibeke had her own version of an Anne of Boelyn cake a few years ago:
This user, Cathy A., hilariously recreated the sad death scene from A Lion King for her child’s birthday party, and that’s a morbid kid cake if I’ve ever seen one:
Speaking of details, one Twitter user noted the genius of this disturbing detail on the Lion King cake. Y’all. I’m shook.
And this mom, Fiona Fidler-Calvin shared a picture of a gory MacBeth cake her kids made for her birthday. They did a great job!
Back to the OG morbid kid cake – a twitter user named Nia took a blown-up screenshot of Kingsley’s cake to point out the hilarious shade being thrown from Henry’s next wife. Check it out:
We can’t stop laughing at the glorious details in the castle window. One lady looks epically grossed out while the other looks like she wish she had swiped left. NoRupologies knows exactly what I’m talking about by remarking “the SHADE of it all.”
If you have time to kill (see what I did there?), then grab a slice of cake and sit back and read the endless thread of funny responses from people all over the world.
And don’t worry, if your kid asks for a death scene on their cake, it could just be that it’s trending.