Pass the cake, please. Baker Claire Ptak is hard at work on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s royal wedding cake for Saturday, May 19.
The owner of Violet bakery in East London gave those eager to know everything about the nuptials a sneak peek at the process and recipe behind the cake. “We’ve been so lucky to work at Buckingham Palace to bake the cake and to ice the cake,” Ptak said in a video shared on the royal family’s Twitter account. “The cake is made up of lemon sponge. It has an elderflower syrup drizzle on the sponge. It has an Amalfi lemon curd and then it has a Swiss meringue buttercream with elderflower.”
🎥 Watch as baker Claire Ptak begins work on the #RoyalWedding Cake! pic.twitter.com/OTdcF9hc0a
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) May 18, 2018
“We will assemble it in situ at Windsor Castle on Saturday morning,” the pastry chef explained, meaning the cake won’t be moved from the spot where it is put together. “And then add the flowers because they obviously need to be added at the last moment.”
When guests dig into the delectable dessert, they can expect a harmony of flavors. “Where the buttercream is sweet, the lemon curd is very tart. So you get a really lovely kind of thing happening when you take a bite, which is to get all of those flavors and sensations,” Ptak said. “Hopefully it’s perfectly balanced!”
Kensington Palace also revealed the ingredients used in the cake on Twitter. Ptak — who Markle once interviewed for her former lifestyle blog The Tig — combined 200 Amalfi lemons, 500 organic eggs from Suffolk, 20 kgs of butter, 20 kgs of flour, 20 kgs of sugar and 10 bottles of Sandringham Elderflower Cordial to create the culinary masterpiece.
The bride and groom broke from tradition when they announced they would have a lemon elderflower cake topped with buttercream and fresh flowers. The royal family has served fruitcakes at weddings for centuries, so Markle and Harry’s guests are clearly in for a unique treat.
