The story of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s lemon and elderflower wedding cake – along with its recipe in a sugar-free version

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle officially tied the knot this spring, so it’s time to take a closer look at their gorgeous wedding cake.

Harry and Meghan charged Claire Ptak with baking a cake that “incorporates the bright flavors of spring”. Claire and the rest of the British royal bakers abandoned the tradition of a tiered wedding cake. They created a layered lemon and elderflower cake in three parts of varying sizes.

“The texture is really lovely and the flavor is quintessentially spring and British,” the baker said in a video released by Kensington Palace. Ms. Ptak described the flavor of the cake as being a balance of sweet and tart, combined with “ethereal” elderflower. The cake, which was decorated with a white, elderflower swiss meringue buttercream on the outside, was made of layered lemon sponge, drizzled with an elderflower syrup. The recipe was created specially for the couple. The layers were sandwiched with buttercream and lemon curd. The cake was adorned with a mix of 150 fresh flowers, including peonies and roses. The slices were served with edible rose petals.

Some 200 Amalfi lemons, 20 kgs of butter, 20 kgs of flour, 20 kgs of sugar and 500 organic eggs from Suffolk were used in the recipe, as well as 10 bottles of Sandringham Elderflower Cordial made from elderflower from the Queen’s Sandringham estate.

Each tier was shipped separately from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle and then assembled on site on Saturday before the reception. The flowers were added at the last moment to stay fresh.

Following the ceremony at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, slices of the royal cake were served to the 600 guests at the lunchtime reception in St George’s Hall. The estimated cost of the royal cake is £ 50,000.

The chef, who owns Violet Bakery in East London, has been working with her team of six bakers full time for five days in the large kitchens of Buckingham Palace. The bakers were dressed in matching white polo necks, khaki trousers and cream aprons.

Claire revealed how Prince Harry and Meghan Markle loved trying a number of different cake samples before settling on lemon and elderflower for their big day. She said: “They loved it. They tried quite a collection. What they said to me is that they really loved the idea of the seasonality and the freshness.”

Claire did not make a back-up cake in case of a disaster, saying: “It’s cake. It can’t go that wrong. 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 recipe

And now let’s see the recipe of the cake – but beware, this is a special version: a sugarfree one with Bolero! It serves 12, takes 20 minutes to prepare and 45-50 minutes of baking time.

Ingredients

• 225 g butter, softened
• 115 g of stevia
• 1/3 sachet of Elderflower Bolero
• 1/4 sachet of Lemon Bolero
• 1,5 dls of water
• 4 large eggs
• 225 g self-raising flour, sifted
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 50 ml of Elderflower Cordial

How to prepare

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan 160°C. Grease a 20cm round, deep, loose-based cake-tin and line with baking parchment.
2. Place the butter, stevia and lemon zest in a large bowl and beat them together with an electric whisk until they are pale and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs, whisking well between additions. Add 2 tbsps of flour with the last egg.
3. Riddle the remaining flour, then gently fold in with a metal spoon along with 2 tbsps of hot water. Spoon into the prepared cake-tin, level the surface and bake for 45-50 minutes or until it is shrinking away from the sides of the cake-tin. Cool in the cake-tin for 5 minutes.
4. Mix the Elderflower and Lemon Bolero with the water. Stir in the Cordial. (Alternatively you may use 2 dls of water for the mixture and leave out the Cordial). Use a fine skewer to prick the cake all over. Pour over the mixture, then sprinkle over stevia – it should sink in but leave a crust.
5. Alternatively decorate the top with a thin glaze made of stevia, water and lemon Bolero. Add edible flowers.
6. Leave to cool completely before removing the cake from the cake-tin.