How to make Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s wedding cake

PRINCE Harry and Meghan Markle shunned the traditional wedding fruitcake and instead opted for a contemporary lemon and elderflower creation. This is how you can make it.

WE weren’t too surprised when soon-to-be-weds Prince Harry and Meghan Markle shunned the traditional wedding fruitcake and instead opted for a contemporary lemon and elderflower creation.

Not exactly the traditional royal couple themselves, we were always expecting something a little more, um, exciting this time round (sorry Wills and Kate).

The besotted duo appointed Californian-born, London-based Claire Ptak of East London’s Violet Bakery as official royal wedding cake creator after she’d caught Markle’s attention pre wedding bling.

With a good stint at Alice Waters’ famous Chez Panisse in California and endorsements from both Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson, the cake is no doubt going to be quite the wedding centrepiece.

With the wedding taking place in British springtime, in-season and so-hot-right-now elderflower was an obvious choice as one of the main flavour profiles.

MEET THE MARKLES: Meghan’s crazy family

Baker Claire Ptak poses for a photograph inside her bakery, Violet, in East London. Picture: AFP

Ptak is known for her light-as-air fluffy sponges and creative takes on buttercream (think salted caramel, violet or white coconut), so we thought it was high time to have a crack at making our own version of the cake of the year (Decade? Century?).

We’ve watched open mouthed as cake creations became wilder, more colourful and sometimes of epic proportions.

And at the other end of the scale, we’ve seen cake trends move from the heavily iced to the ‘naked’, where a thinner, barely there layer is applied to a cake for an arguably more palatable bite.

This, of course, is much more suited to a royal wedding, even if you’re not having it laden with fruit.

The icing and decoration is as important as the cake itself, and fresh flowers are a wonderful finishing touch for the big day.

Absolute cake boss and food director at delicious, Phoebe Wood spent a weekend creating, testing and shaping our three-tiered lemon and elderflower cake with white chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream icing.

Britain's Prince Harry and his fiancée US actress Meghan Markle. Picture: AFP

“I was so pleased to see Prince Harry and Megan choose an elegant and contemporary cake for their British-spring wedding. This style of cake is exactly what I like to create”, she explained.

 “Our version features a light and fluffy buttermilk cake laced with nutty coconut.

It’s soaked in a bold lemon and elderflower syrup to keep the cake layers moist and bring in those floral notes, with a pretty, citrusy-sweet swirl of lemon curd to sandwich the layers.

“Finally, Swiss meringue buttercream — the ultimate cake icing — is flavoured with white chocolate and vanilla for a luxurious, silky finish.

“Fresh elderflower blossoms and autumnal blooms are the finishing stylish touches.”

If you’re going to make this at home, it’s important to start the day before.

There are a number of steps to getting the final look, and time pressure is something to avoid with such an epic creation.

You can use any unsprayed flowers you like to decorate your cake, so go wild!

**Visit delicious.com.au to see the full step-by-step video to make the cake.

The Royal Wedding Cake by delicious. Three-tiered lemon and elderflower cake with white chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream icing. Picture: Delicious.com.au

THE ROYAL WEDDING CAKE RECIPE

Three-tiered lemon and elderflower cake with white chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream icing

Note: this recipe makes one 26cm cake OR one 15cm and one 21cm cake. If you are making the three-tiered cake, make two batches of the cake batter, and double the quantity of the syrup and Swiss meringue buttercream icing. The three-tiered cake serves 50.

Begin this recipe 1 day ahead.

INGREDIENTS

420g unsalted butter, chopped, softened

420g caster sugar

6 eggs

2 tsp vanilla bean paste

4 cups (600g) self-raising flour, sifted

¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground cardamom

1½ cups (135g) desiccated coconut

2 cups (500ml) buttermilk

Finely grated zest of 2 lemons and juice of ½ lemon

¾ cup (325g) good-quality lemon curd

Elderflower and unsprayed white flowers (from florists), to decorate

Lemon and elderflower syrup

¼ cup (60ml) lemon juice

80g caster sugar

½ cup (125ml) elderflower cordial

White chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream icing

¾ cup (165g) caster sugar

3 eggwhites

250g unsalted butter, chopped, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

90g white chocolate, melted, cooled

METHOD

1 Preheat the oven to 160°C. Grease base and sides of one 26cm x 7cm round cake pan, or one 21cm x 7cm round cake pan and one 15cm x 7cm round cake pan. Line pan/pans with baking paper.

2 To make the cake, in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar until thick and pale. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in vanilla.

3 Reduce speed to low. Sift flour, bicarb, cardamom and a pinch of salt flakes into a bowl. Add coconut and stir to combine. Add one-third flour mixture to stand mixer bowl, then one-third buttermilk. Repeat 2 more times, folding until smooth. Fold in lemon zest and juice, then spread batter into prepared 26cm pan, or divide batter between the prepared 15cm and 21cm pans.

4 Bake 26cm cake for 1 hour 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out with a few moist crumbs.

Bake 21cm cake for 1 hour 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out with a few moist crumbs.

Bake 15cm cake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out with a few moist crumbs. Cool cake/cakes completely in the pans.

Using a serrated knife, trim tops of cakes to level, then cut cake/cakes in half horizontally.

5 For the syrup, place lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan with ¼ cup (60ml) water. Place over medium heat and cook, stirring, to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 10 minutes or until thickened. Add elderflower cordial and cool completely.

6 For the white chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream icing, place sugar and eggwhites in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water (don’t let the bowl touch the water) and whisk until sugar dissolves.

Transfer to cleaned stand mixer and whisk on high speed for 10 minutes or until thick, glossy and completely cooled.

7 Add the butter, 1 piece at a time, whisking until very thick. Add vanilla and white chocolate and fold through to combine.

8 To assemble the three-tiered cake, place one 26cm layer on a cake stand.

Brush the top with one-third lemon and elderflower syrup. Cover top with a thin layer of buttercream, then ¾ cup (240g) lemon curd. Top with second half of 26cm cake. Coat entire cake in a thin layer of buttercream. Place in the freezer to set the icing.

Repeat process with 21cm cake, using ½ cup (160g) lemon curd as the filling. Repeat process with 15cm cake, using remaining ¼ cup (80g) lemon curd.

9 When the thin layer of icing has set on all the cakes, stack the 21cm cake on top of the 26cm cake, then the 15cm cake on top of the 21cm cake.

Spread with remaining icing, using a palette knife to scrape back the icing to achieve a ‘naked’ effect. Chill for 30 minutes to set, then decorate with fresh elderflower and other fresh unsprayed flowers.

Credit: Recipe by Phoebe Wood, food director of delicious.