{"id":63,"date":"2026-05-20T21:40:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=63"},"modified":"2026-05-20T21:40:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:40:03","slug":"chez-panisse-alum-who-baked-meghan-markles-wedding-cake-recalls-magical-royal-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=63","title":{"rendered":"Chez Panisse alum who baked Meghan Markle’s wedding cake recalls ‘magical’ royal wedding"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For some reason, Meghan Markle seems especially eager this year to remind people of the fact that she married into the British royal family by sharing previously unseen photos of her and Prince Harry at their May 2018 wedding at Windsor Castle and of them looking romantic and sexy while dancing together at their evening reception.<\/p>\n

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And one person who played a key role in the May 2018 royal affair has joined Meghan in celebrating the eighth anniversary of her\u00a0 globally televised wedding. That\u2019s Claire Ptak, the Bay Area-reared baker and former Chez Panisse pastry chef who went on Instagram Tuesday to thank Meghan and Harry for trusting her and her team with the job of baking the royal wedding cake.<\/p>\n

In her post, Ptak shared photos of herself and her staff from her London bakery, Violet Cakes, making her famous lemon-elderflower cake which was displayed and served at the lunchtime reception hosted by the late Queen Elizabeth II. In her caption, Ptak said: \u201cThank you @meghan and Harry for trusting me and my team to make your wedding cake 8 years ago today! It\u2019s not every day you get asked to \u2018do what you do\u2019 and design a cake for a prince and princess with the entire world watching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ptak also described the \u201cmagical week\u201d leading up to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex\u2019s wedding, emphasizing \u201cthe LOVE\u201d that was \u201cin every single room, palace, castle and kitchen we were in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only from the generosity of Meghan and Harry and the entire royal family but how we were welcomed by teams of professional, friendly and kind loyal staff,\u201d Ptak said. \u201cIt took 6 of us 5 days and a LOT of lemons and elderflowers to make that cake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ptak certainly has a rosier view of some people\u2019s feelings in the lead-up to the wedding, given the subsequent \u201ctiara-gate\u201d reports that the queen was ticked off by Meghan\u2019s demands to be given special access to the tiara she would allow her to wear. And then there were the reports that Prince William wasn\u2019t pleased that Harry appeared to be rushing into marrying the American former TV actor and that either Meghan or Kate Middleton were left in tears over a particularly contentious fitting for bridesmaids\u2019 dresses.<\/p>\n

And, of course, Meghan and Harry are now notoriously estranged from his royal relatives, which could explain why none of the wedding photos that Ptak shared from Meghan\u2019s Instagram show anyone but Meghan, Harry and Harry\u2019s friend, singer Elton John in them. None of Meghan\u2019s photos show the late queen, William, Kate or King Charles. The former Prince of Wales stepped in to help walk Meghan down the aisle after her elderly father, Thomas Markle, suddenly bailed from the wedding after he became embroiled in a paparazzi scandal and suffered a reported heart attack.<\/p>\n

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A recent report also listed some of the celebrity wedding guests who are no longer considered to be friends of the Sussexes \u2014 if they ever were friends in the first place. The Daily Mail reported that the Sussexes have fallen out of favor with David and Victoria Beckham, George and Amal Clooney and Idris Elba. Even Oprah Winfrey has been \u201clong-arming\u201d the Sussexes because they have become divisive figures in popular culture, entertainment journalist Paula Froelich told the Daily Mail. Winfrey only wants to stay connected to the couple in case one or both will want to do a tell-all interview in the future, Froelich said.<\/p>\n

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As previously mentioned, the only celebrity guest who shows up in both Meghan and Ptak\u2019s posts is John, who performed at the lunchtime reception. Ptak writes that her cakes \u201cwere displayed in front of @eltonjohn and his piano then lanced with Harry\u2019s sword.\u201d She also said: \u201cWe had been invited into Buckingham Palace to bake the cakes safely away from paparazzi gathering outside our small bakery in East London.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of the wedding, Ptak got plenty of attention as the official wedding-cake baker from America, with reports describing her childhood in the small Marin County town of Inverness, next door to Point Reyes National Seashore. She also worked as a pastry chef for Alice Waters\u2019 legendary Chez Panisse before moving to London to open her own bakery there.<\/p>\n

The week of the wedding, Ptak released a video, detailing the cake her team was preparing. She noted that the recipe would break with the British tradition of serving a rich, multi-tiered fruitcake soaked in alcohol for a wedding. Ptak\u2019s cake would instead \u201cinvoke the sights and tastes of spring,\u201d as E! reported. For Meghan and Harry\u2019s multi-part cake, Ptak actually baked three lemon sponge cakes, filled each with lemon curd and covered the cakes with a Swiss meringue buttercream that is \u201clight and fluffy, kind of satiny and super delicious.\u201d<\/p>\n

As reported by E!, the recipe called for 200 Amalfi lemons, 500 organic eggs, 44 pounds each of butter, flour and sugar and 10 bottles of Sandringham Elderflower Cordial. She said the cake took a team of six bakers five days to create, and it was presented with fresh-cut roses and elderflowers.<\/p>\n

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Over the years, Ptak has used Instagram to recall her triumph at Meghan and Harry\u2019s wedding or to let fans of the Sussexes know that she also had the honor of baking the first birthday cake for the couple\u2019s daughter, Lilibet. Meghan and Harry celebrated Lilibet\u2019s birthday at their former Windsor Park home, Frogmore Cottage, in June 2022, while in the U.K. to celebrate the late queen\u2019s Platinum Jubilee.<\/p>\n

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Claire Ptak joined Meghan in celebrating her eighth wedding anniversary by recalling the lemon-elderflower cake she made to be served at a reception hosted by Queen Elizabeth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-things-to-do"],"yoast_head":"\nChez Panisse alum who baked Meghan Markle’s wedding cake recalls ‘magical’ royal wedding - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=63\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chez Panisse alum who baked Meghan Markle’s wedding cake recalls ‘magical’ royal wedding - 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