Sneak peek! Royal baker puts final flourish on wedding cake

Claire Ptak, who is making the culinary centrepiece for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s big day, is putting the final touches on the “ethereal” wedding cake, and the Palace has given royal fans a sneak peek at the masterpiece. The three-tiered layered lemon and elderflower cake will be presented in a non-traditional way, chef Ptak said on Thursday.

“It’s a very special flavour, it’s kind of an ethereal, sort of floral flavour, which I think is really special, especially for a wedding,” she told reporters who had been allowed in the kitchen to watch the magic happen. 

Ptak, who owns the small, trendy Violet Bakery in east London, has been working with her team of six bakers for the past five days in the oversized kitchens of Buckingham Palace.

The cake, which is being decorated on the outside with a white, elderflower swiss meringue buttercream, is made up of layered lemon sponge, with Ptak revealing: “It has an elderflower syrup drizzle on the sponge and it has an Amalfi lemon curd”.

She described the flavour of the cake as being a balance of sweet and tart, combined with “ethereal” elderflower. “So you get a really lovely thing happening when you take a bite.”

The final design will be unveiled on the big day, but check out this sneak peek of the #royalwedding cake pic.twitter.com/villfSypB5

— PA Media (@PA) May 18, 2018

Some 200 Amalfi lemons are being used in the recipe, as well as 10 bottles of Sandringham elderflower cordial, which is made with elderflower from Queen Elizabeth’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

 

And so it begins ????

A post shared by Violet By Claire Ptak (@violetcakeslondon) on May 14, 2018 at 9:45pm PDT

The final design will be revealed on the big day, which has been approved by Harry and Meghan.

The natural-looking, not particularly polished cakes are a far cry from the usual royal wedding cake, which are usually made by the palace’s bakers. For Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip’s wedding almost 71 years ago, guests dined on a 500-pound (220 kilogram), 9-foot-tall (2.7 metre) cake that produced slices for 2,000 people.

Harry and Meghan will tie the knot at Windsor Castle on Saturday.

Do you still prefer a traditional wedding cake? Will you be watching the wedding?