It's been a week to the royal wedding and the world still has wedding fever. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have married and they are now the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and are even planning their honeymoon. But people can't seem to get over their glorious nuptial ceremony and from Meghan's wedding dress to their cake, everything is giving goals to youngsters.
For instance, the royal wedding cake which is as beautiful, as it was modern and delicious, made serious news as people noted how the royal moved from more traditional flavours and towards new and more interesting ones. There's something else about the cake which has got the attention of the millennials - the frosting. The effortless frosting has caused a stir as it is so different from the carefully done and classical frosting that's usual in aristocratic British weddings. So, what's so trailblazing about Harry and Meghan's cake?
For their wedding cake, Harry and Meghan opted for a truly hipster flavour which was bound to get the attention of the millennials. They chose a lemon elderflower cake, which would have the flavours and colours of spring and will be filled with buttercream and decorated with fresh flowers. It is obvious that Harry and Meghan have thought a lot about the flavour as they were careful about not choosing a flavour which would be too heavy on the palette or too rich or overwhelming. Plus, it was a great way to mark the coming of spring. And the seasonal touch was something a royal wedding cake never really had until now.
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Interestingly, Harry and Meghan's cake was a sponge cake which is of course lighter on the palette than Prince William and Kate Middleton's rich fruit cake pastry which they opted for as their wedding. William and Kate's wedding cake was an elaborate affair. The eight-tiered cake had to be baked months in advance as fruitcakes take time to mature and was immaculately frosted. Compared to their cake, Meghan and Harry's cake was much more effortless and casual in flavour and less flamboyant.
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Let's just point out that royal wedding don't usually go for sponge cakes. it was like Meghan and Harry were trying to be different with their tastes. Their cake was sprinkled with elderflower syrup which was actually made from the Queen Elizabeth's elderflower trees. The cake was decorated with Amalfi lemon curd and had a rich layer of meringue-style, elderflower-infused buttercream. The cake was also very elegantly set-up with hundreds of roses and peonies.
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Meghan and Harry's choice of baker was also quite refreshing as they chose a pastry chef who specializes in organic foods and recipes. They chose Claire Ptak as their wedding baker who gave relentless social media updates as the wedding cake was being prepared. Interestingly, Meghan had once interviewed Claire for her lifestyle website and the fact that Claire was such a pro with seasonal flavours obviously helped her case.
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People think the royal couple chose Claire as she is a total millennial’s favourite and her organic expertise and healthier cakes are something the royals loved about her and her team. If you go to her website or Instagram page you will see a lot of organic and healthy cakes which make her seem as the perfect choice for the royal wedding.
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One of the things which first got people's attention of the people was the final frosting. Claire shared a close-up shot of the wedding cake on her Instagram handle which focused on the Swiss meringue buttercream frosting which was purposefully done up like a messy topping. It was apparently inspired by a baking technique called rough icing and has the Internet abuzz.
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The rough textured icing has been a modern baker's go-to favourite design. However, on the royal wedding cake it looked very, very original and fresh. The rough topping was carefully designed so as to draw attention to the silk-like buttercream and was far more interesting than the plain old immaculately done clean-cut vanilla frosting, which the royal couple were clearly trying to avoid. The fresh flowers on the cake was an incredible touch for which Claire and her team got a very positive reception.
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The royal wedding's rough icing elderflower cake is being hailed as the messy bun of the cake world. Interestingly, Meghan is the first royal to have brought the messy bun to the forefront. She made quite a number of appearances in a messy bun, which is quite refreshing considering royals like Kate Middleton are not really a fan of the messy hair trend. Meghan's wedding cake seemed like a befitting homage to her sense of style.
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The flowers on the cake was a truly welcoming detail, as fresh flowers on a cake is a rather American move. Interestingly, Claire's bakery makes quite a lot of pastry with fresh flowers and it's actually one of her signature techniques. In fact, floral cakes with rough icing was a splendid idea and this has given the millennials new goals for cakes. In fact, now youngsters are going for cupcakes with floral detailing and fresh flowers and even looking for wedding cakes which would have fresh flowers on top.
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To make the rough icing cake with flowers, you need to have at least three tiers in your cake. The three tiers should be of different sizes. The top tier should be smallest, the middle tier, slightly bigger and the base tier should be the biggest, and should be arranged accordingly. Then you need to cut a slice out of the three tiers, but be careful to position the cakes strategically, so that the cut-out portions are aligned.
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You need to trim the flowers for preparing this modern design. You have to take out the stem of the flowers and the ferns and actually make sure that they are symmetrical before being placed on the cake.
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The flowers needed to be bundled up in one place and stuck together, and then placed in the area where the cake has been cut. The entire flower arrangement has to be sorted into a bouquet and arranged on the cut area and has to be kept there.
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Perhaps one of the most important things in the entire set-up would be the colour palette. The royal wedding cake had an all-pastel colour scheme, but your cakes don’t need to be so simple. You can actually go for bright colours, and as the floral arrangements are an option, you can obviously choose bright seasonal flowers.
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You can even go bold with colourful frosting. We can’t imagine the royal wedding having a pop of colour in its buttercream frosting, but your cakes or pastries can easily have coloured frosting for the rough icing texture.
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People were curious as to what the guests had for the reception along with the cake. It has been revealed that guests were served sweet canapés, pistachio macaroons, orange crème brûlée and tartlets, along with a Pol Roger Brut Réserve Non Vintage Champagne.
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