5 Cake Makers Who Have Baked For The Royal Family
By
2 months ago
Royally-approved pastry chefs
Baking is never without its stresses, but we imagine the pressure levels rise just a tad when you’ve been commissioned by the royal family. Just a handful of bakers across Britain have been entrusted with such a task, whether that’s crafting a multi-tiered cake for the royal wedding of the decade or coming up with a symbolic design for the King’s Coronation cake. But what is the process like? How does one go about creating a cake that will have a place in the history books? We meet the pastry mavericks who have baked for British royalty below.
Meet Britain’s Royal Bakers
Claire Ptak
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle broke many royal traditions when they tied the knot in 2018, including their choice of cake. Instead of going for the tiered fruitcakes that had dominated royal weddings for centuries, the pair opted for a non-tiered, elderflower and lemon sponge cake. Enlisted to make the cake was Hackney baker Claire Ptak, owner of East London bakery Violet Cakes (who also made the wedding cake for Charli XCX’s recent London wedding).
Raised in California but living in London, Ptak felt like the perfect choice for the union of LA-born Markle and her British prince. The project was no mean feat: Ptak had to bake a cake to feed 600 people, and there were complex technicalities to navigate. ‘I needed to be sure the icing was going to stand up to the atmosphere it was in,’ she told Vanity Fair. ‘I knew the fresh buttercream was going to be hard to keep looking stable in a warm room with 600 people. It’s so soft and so fresh that it was the most stressful part of [making] the cake. I had nightmares about it sliding off the table.’
View this post on Instagram
In the months leading up to the wedding, numerous recipe testing sessions took place with Harry and Meghan at Windsor Castle. However, Ptak has said the pair trusted in her creative vision. ‘Meghan, she specifically said to me, “I don’t want to tell you what to do… the reason why I’ve chosen you is because I love your baking and your work and your point of view and your ethos”,’ she said.
The week before the big day, Ptak and her team spent five days straight perfecting the masterpiece, keeping it chilled until the last possible minute before it was taken to St George’s Hall in Windsor, where the reception was due to take place. The cake – which was made out of four separate sponges, presented on a tiered gold stand – was covered in Swiss meringue buttercream icing and decorated with white peonies and roses.
Nadiya Hussain
In 2016, Nadiya Hussain was crowned winner of The Great British Bake Off, impressing baking royalty Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. The following year, she received an email asking if she would be up for making a birthday cake for actual royalty, the late Queen Elizabeth II, who was soon to turn 90. At first, Hussain thought it was a hoax, but after confirming it was a real request she quickly began brainstorming ideas – with just one guideline to follow: no fruitcake, as it can be hard to cut through.
Instead, she settled on a triple-tiered orange drizzle marmalade cake, a nod to the classic Victoria sponge. She made the cake in her kitchen at home across four days, and understandably found the process nerve-wracking and overwhelming. On the day itself, it was whisked over to Windsor Castle’s Guildhall, where it was presented to the Queen, and sliced up to be shared with guests.
The final creation was a suitably decadent cake filled with vanilla buttercream, and decorated with a purple and gold fondant. Despite some critics calling the cake ‘wonky’ (which Hussain shrugged off in an interview on Loose Women), she described the experience as ‘one of her proudest moments.’
Sophie Cabot
The wedding of Harry and Meghan wasn’t the only royal nuptials to take place in 2018. Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank also exchanged vows in October, complete with a five-tiered red velvet and chocolate cake created by London-based baker Sophie Cabot.
View this post on Instagram
Cabot – known for her intricate hand-painting pastry techniques – was invited to meet the royal couple by Prince Andrew after supplying bespoke biscuits for one of his Pitch@Palace events. Multiple meetings to discuss the details ensued, and Cabot started working on some of the elements in July, making sugar flowers and foliage. ‘They were very excited about having red velvet, during the tastings red velvet and chocolate came out top,’ said Cabot about the royal couple. ‘Not one cake is ever the same and this was extra because of the time of year and they wanted to keep it so seasonal – it was a real joy.’
Cabot baked the cake in the kitchens of Buckingham Palace, using a whopping 400 eggs, 53 packs of butter, 15 kilograms of flour, and 20 kilos of sugar.
Robert Craggs
For King Charles’ Coronation cake, it was Robert Craggs, lead development chef at royal warrant-holding British confectionery company pladis, who got the call up. He drew inspiration from previous royal cakes created by McVitie’s (owned by pladis), opting for a 1.2m-high dark fruitcake.
From design to decoration, Craggs spent five months creating the cake – and the baking process itself took 120 hours, separated into small batches over two months. Ingredients included 300 Duchy organic, free-range eggs, and fruits including sultanas, raisins and glacé cherries, plus apples from the orchard at Highgrove Estate. Fruit cakes are often made in advance to allow the flavour to develop – but how did Craggs keep it fresh? ‘The best way to preserve the great flavours of a fruit cake is to wrap it in baking parchment in an airtight container, so that’s how it was stored during the process,’ he explained.
Being a cake for a historic milestone, it’s no surprise many symbols were incorporated into the design. The bottom tier had matte stone icing reflecting the Stone of Destiny, which has long been used in royal inaugurations, for instance, while the third tier was embossed with gilded detailing inspired by Coronation Chair.
Fiona Cairns
Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding cake was made by baker Fiona Cairns, who launched her eponymous business in the 1980s, going on to supply cakes to Waitrose and Selfridges. She’s no stranger to A-list baking commissions, having baked for the likes of Bono and Sir Paul McCartney, but of course getting the call up from Kensington Palace was extra special.
‘It was a huge privilege, and we felt truly honoured as a team to be asked to make this historical cake for the future King of England,’ Cairns told C&TH. ‘The process was long and as you can imagine a little stressful at times, it took a team of highly skilled staff to design and construct. It is our most important commission, and we would do it all again, especially after hearing that William and Kate said on the day that the cake was “beyond their expectations”.’
View this post on Instagram
Cairns and her team created a traditional fruit cake with eight tiers, featuring intricate ivory sugar paste detailing that included 17 flowers symbolising England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Described as an ‘architectural project’, it was put together by a team of six people at the Leicestershire bakery and took three days. When the cakes were ready, Cairns drove them down the M1 to Buckingham Palace herself, where they were assembled into a grand, romantic masterpiece.
