Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Wedding Cake Is Too Pretty to Eat

Claire Ptak and her team of six bakers created a lemon-elderflower masterpiece

By Zach Johnson May 19, 2018 1:25 PMTags

Save us a slice!

Yesterday, Kensington Palace gave an update on Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's wedding cake as London-based pastry chef Claire Ptak finalizes it for Saturday's reception.

In March, Kensington Palace announced Harry and Meghan hired Claire "to create a lemon-elderflower cake that will incorporate the bright flavors of spring." Claire said in a video she baked three lemon sponge cakes and filled them with lemon curd. She will cover all of them with a swiss meringue buttercream that is "light and fluffy, kind of satiny and super delicious."

Claire and her team of six bakers used 200 Amalfi lemons, 500 organic eggs from Suffolk, 44 lbs. of butter, 44 lbs. of flour, 44 lbs. of sugar and 10 bottles of Sandringham Elderflower Cordial—and the baking and decorating process will have taken five days total, she said. She topped things off with white garden roses and elderflowers. "It tastes delicious. I hope! I think," she said in a video. "The texture is really lovely and the flavor is quintessentially spring and British."

The Violet Cakes baker, who was once profiled in Meghan's now-defunct blog The Tig, added that her team would assemble the rest of the cake in-situ at Windsor Castle Saturday morning.

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"It's such an honor to be asked to do this, because for me, I've been baking since I was a little kid," said Claire, who hired past and present bakers to help her juggle her day-to-day business with planning for the wedding. "This is my dream to do, and to be asked to do one of the most exciting cakes is really fulfilling and wonderful. As it may or may not boost my business, that's obviously a bonus. But I don't really know what will happen, so I'm just happen to be involved."

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Steve Parsons/PA Wire
Steve Parsons/PA Wire
Steve Parsons/PA Wire

The finished cakes were revealed hours after Harry and Meghan were wed.

Pastry chef Selwyn Stoby also made some sweet treats for the reception. "You approach every Royal event with the same care and attention to detail," he said earlier this month. "But you don't get many opportunities to do a royal wedding in your lifetime, so this is very special."

Harry and Meghan oversaw every aspect of their wedding menu, and they attended several tasting trials held in the Windsor Castle kitchen in March, sampling items made from scratch.

(Originally published on Friday, May 18, 2018, at 10:30 a.m. PDT.)