'Kate's Creation, Our Interpretation': Pastry Chef Fiona Cairns on Royal Wedding Cake
Pastry chef to stars -- and Kate Middleton -- on royal wedding cake.
April 27, 2011— -- In America, the old joke goes, fruitcake is the gift that really keeps on giving: There's only one sad, unappetizing specimen that is regifted over and over.
In England, it is a dessert fit for a bride on her royal wedding day.
For their wedding cake, Prince William and Kate Middleton chose a traditional fruitcake with cream and white icing. Get the royal wedding cake recipe HERE.
The royal couple chose Fiona Cairns, a British pastry chef and graphic designer famous for imaginative ideas, to make the cake that they and their guests will enjoy at the reception. Cairns has created pastries for other famous faces, such as Bono, Sir Paul McCartney and Pink Floyd. Her first cookbook, "Bake and Decorate," was released in March.
In an interview with "Nightline," Cairns explained that she and her baking team had put in hundreds of hours planning, designing and baking this wedding cake of such high prominence.
She said that Kate had been "very involved" in the cake selection from the start.
"She briefed us very closely right at the beginning," Cairns said. "So it's really her creation, our interpretation. ... We made a few mockups ... with piping ideas and flowers and submitted those, and then Catherine sent them back with her notes: what she liked, what she didn't like."
Cairns explained that the outside of William and Kate's cake has a floral motif, each with a special meaning. "There's something called the Language of Flowers," Cairns said. "Daisies symbolize innocence; acorns symbolize strength."
She said Kate sent a list of 17 flowers -- symbolizing love, marriage and happiness -- that she wanted on the cake. "There's even a Sweet William," she said.
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