Harry and Meghan Decline the Traditional Royal Fruitcake
LatestIn a shocking twist, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have ABANDONED royal tradition!!!! Well, shocking until you learn that precedent called for serving a fruitcake at your wedding, at which point it becomes an obvious decision.
Today Kensington Palace announced with great fanfare that the couple will opt not for the rumored banana, but rather “a lemon elderflower cake that will incorporate the bright flavours of spring. It will be covered with buttercream and decorated with fresh flowers.” Which, frankly, sounds delicious. The cake will be designed by California-raised Claire Ptak of London’s Violet Bakery, who focuses on seasonal and organic ingredients and was previously interviewed by Markle for her defunct lifestyle site The Tig. The Tig is dead! Long live the Tig! Sample cake via her Instagram:
The choice is a break with tradition, which dictates fruitcake. Vogue said:
According to Chris Dodd, pastry chef at London’s Dalloway Terrace, traditional English wedding fruitcake “is an elaborate mixture of re-constituted dried fruits, which have been soaked in fruit juices and an alcoholic beverage such as port, sherry, rum, or even whiskey. To these, a dark brown sugar is added, together with a mix of fragrant spices, butter, and flour. The final product is then coated in a marzipan layer, followed by royal icing, to create a smooth and elegant finish.”
The association between the British upper crust and wedding fruitcake goes back centuries; “A fruitcake was originally a symbol of wealth and prosperity because of its precious ingredients such as dried fruits, alcohol, and spices,” Dowd explained. Well, apologies to William the Conqueror, but the flex in 2018 is to opt for organic, seasonal, and ’grammable.
The royal wedding frenzy has reached such proportions in the international media, by the way, that every royal reporter in the English-speaking world immediately seized upon this news, elevating it quickly to a Twitter Moment. Just wait until they release details about the wedding dress.