Royal wedding cake: Claire Ptak's lemon and elderflower creation revealed by Kensington Palace
‘It’s a slight shift from tradition’
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Your support makes all the difference.Kensington Palace has revealed the wedding cake that's been made to celebrate the union of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Claire Ptak, owner of Violet Bakery in east London, has been working on the spring-inspired creation in the kitchens of Buckingham Palace over the past week.
The cake has been presented in an intricate display and will be served to guests of the wedding at the reception.
Ms Ptak has been assisted by a team of six other bakers, including Violet Bakery head baker Izaak Adams, as she’s attentively created the three-part layered cake.
The cake has been made from 200 Amalfi lemons, 10 bottles of Sandringham elderflower cordial, 20kg of butter, 20kg of sugar and 500 organic eggs from Suffolk.
The inside consists of layered lemon sponge that’s been drizzled with an elderflower syrup and sandwiched using buttercream and lemon curd, while the outside has been decorated using a white buttercream made from elderflower Swiss meringue.
Prince Harry and Markle have been heavily involved in the culinary process, with the lemon sponge made especially for the couple and the elderflower cordial made from elderflowers sourced from the Queen’s Sandringham estate.
“The elderflower is so quintessentially British to me as a Californian,” said Ms Ptak.
“It’s a kind of ethereal, floral flavour which I think is very special, especially for a wedding.”
The final appearance of the cake and its display has been kept secret until the day of the nuptials.
“It’s an installation of the way that we’re putting it out. It’s the last thing that we’ll reveal," said Ms Ptak.
“It’s a non-traditional layout,” Ms Ptak continued. “It’s a slight shift from tradition.”
According to the baker, Prince Harry and Markle particularly like the ingenuity behind the cake’s spring design, praising its “seasonality” and “freshness”.
“The buttercream is sweet and the lemon curd is very tart so you get a very lovely thing happening when you take a bite, which is to get all of these flavours and sensations perfectly balanced,” Ms Ptak explained.
The cake has been decorated with a variety of flowers, including some of Markle’s personal favourites in shades of white and cream.
When it came to preparing for any potential mishaps, Ms Ptak didn’t feel the need to make another cake should anything go wrong.
“It’s cake. It can’t go that wrong,” she said.
“We have enough cake and we don’t want to be wasteful. Anything that is left over, we were going to donate to charity.”
The cake’s installation was put together this morning, with the flowers then added once the cake was carefully transported to Windsor Castle.
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