I baked Meghan’s ￡38 lemon cake – and it’s an acquired taste
The sweet spot for any successful lifestyle blogger lies somewhere between “try this easy family recipe” and “these crystals can heal your anxiety”.
It’s why, if you head to Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, you can find a recipe for a wholesome lemon cake alongside your quartz yoni eggs, why, if you pop onto Holly Willoughby’s Wylde Moon, you could get her family’s lemon drizzle recipe (these gurus have a thing about lemon cakes) alongside a ￡65 candle.
And it’s why, this month, you might find yourself trying the Duchess of Sussex’s lemon olive oil cake while scrolling through the Instagram page for her newly relaunched lifestyle brand.
More than 120,000 followers are waiting with bated breath for @meghan (she’s very much in the single-name phase of fame now, joining the ranks of Beyoncé and Madonna) to spring into life. The Instagram account currently has no posts, just a dreamy placeholder image of some pale pink dahlias.
Presumably her new brand team is working away in the background preparing to launch – Beverly Hills-based agency William Morris Endeavour announced in April it would be representing her “in all areas”, “focusing on building out her business ventures across multiple facets”. Could one of those “facets” be a relaunch of her old food, beauty and travel blog, The Tig?
If so, the Duchess is already off to a fine start. She has the new recipe coming out for her lemon olive oil cake, joining famous names including Michelle Obama in contributing a dish to the World Central Kitchen (WCK) cookbook, which is published on September 12.
Having decided to try it out, I should probably begin with an apology to the Duchess. I’m afraid I’ve fallen at the first hurdle with this recipe. Six hours ago, I should have been crystallising rosemary, dunking it into egg white, swiping it through granulated sugar and leaving it to dry out and become a perfect little sugared sprig.
On closer inspection, though, it doesn’t seem essential to the finished product – more a decoration than an integral part of the bake. I give it the egg and sugar treatment anyway and on I go, hoping an hour or so of drying might be just enough.
The ingredients list seems promising – more promising, anyway, than Goop’s, which, as you might expect, features a collection of ingredients you’d be more likely to find in a health food shop than in the baking section of the supermarket (I’m just not sure why I need to put xanthan gum in my sponge).
Meghan’s has real sugar (good), real milk (go on Megs, defying the LA plant-milk brigade), three eggs and proper flour (lovely stuff). There’s olive oil in lieu of butter, which can make for a gloriously moist sponge if done right, or a spectacularly claggy one if done wrong.
I must admit my eyebrows raise slightly at the apparent need for lemon juice, zest, extract (can’t see the point) and quite a decent slosh of limoncello. I tend to think limoncello tastes like a cross between Lemsip and paint stripper, but each to their own. I’m also not overly convinced you’ll actually taste it in the sponge, which I suppose is good news for me but less good for my bank balance – I’m now left with an ￡18 bottle of limoncello and no desire to drink it.
In fact, as cakes go, it should be said this is a rather expensive one. Your shopping list will set you back ￡38.05 in Waitrose.
But, in fairness, it is all for a good cause. Which cause is that you say?
Neighbourliness.
Yes, the recipe encourages you to take a slice next door and show how “even our smallest actions can have a ripple effect”. The Sussexes’ neighbours must be the envy of Montecito by now. They must be positively overrun with cake.
Onto the recipe, which I have to say is mercifully straightforward – any cake that comes together in one bowl gets my vote.
First you are instructed to “emulsify” the eggs and olive oil, then add an awful lot of milk (283g to be precise – yes, the measurements are in American cups or grams) and all the various lemon flavourings, then whisk in the sugar (350g of it, an unholy amount – what is it about American baking recipes and their sugar content?), then whisk in flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt.
The batter is roughly the consistency of single cream, which doesn’t seem nearly thick enough, but the Duchess offers some reassurance on that front. “The batter will be on the thin side,” she writes. “This is normal.” Right-oh then.
Into the oven it goes, for an hour and 15 minutes. Not a quick one, this, but the kitchen does smell glorious as it bakes.
The book itself is a lovely thing. The WCK is a not-for-profit NGO which provides meals in the wake of natural disasters.
Most recently, the charity has worked in Ukraine, setting up welcome stations at the border to feed fleeing refugees. The charity “found a simpatico partner in the Archewell Foundation”, writes Spanish American chef José Andrés, who worked at El Bulli before setting up his own successful restaurants in America – and refusing to work with Donald Trump. This cake is meant to “mark the two organisations’ friendship”.
The Duchess, described in the book as “an inspiration to us all” and “an experienced baker and food lover”, sent the cake to a group of female restaurateurs who partnered with WCK during the pandemic, and the community members for whom they provided meals.
She included a note from herself and Prince Harry: “We hope you enjoy the offering we baked for you – a small token of thanks, from our home to yours. Our hope with this effort is to show that, when we all participate, even the smallest actions can have a ripple effect. Even individual actions can impact the whole of us.”
The cake, the book suggests, is so good you’ll “want to have it on the kitchen counter at all times, available for a slice with your afternoon coffee”. After an hour in the oven and another cooling in the tin, I turn out my sponge and top it with a sprinkling of sugar (the recipe calls for icing sugar – I use demerara only because it’s what I had in the cupboard) and that sprig of admittedly not yet fully crystallised rosemary.
I’m still not convinced the limoncello has done much, and the texture is a little wet and claggy for my liking, but it’s beautifully lemony, as you would expect with all those lemons in different forms, with a very good crust.
It’s hard to say whether or not this is truly the start of the Great Sussex Rebrand. But if Meghan is about to become a food influencer, she might like to take inspiration from Gwyneth’s Instagram page, where she regularly shares the “boyfriend breakfasts” she makes for her husband Brad. Prince Harry has been known to enjoy a slice of treacle tart for breakfast. If the Duchess is in need of a recipe, might I recommend Jamie Oliver’s? It’d certainly be cheaper to make than her olive oil lemon cake.
The World Central Kitchen Cookbook by José Andrés is published by Clarkson Potter on September 12 and is available for pre-order now
Other royal recipes fit for a king
The Prince and Princess of Wales’s chocolate biscuit cake
This simple cake only consists of five ingredients and requires no baking. The couple served it at their wedding in 2011. The cookie of choice is Rich Tea biscuits and the cake is finished with a shiny chocolate coat of ganache.
King Charles III’s pheasant crumble pie
This dish was created by John Williams, executive chef at The Ritz in London, and consists of cooked pheasant braised into a filling of bacon bits, vegetables and garlicky butter, topped with a cheese and crispy bacon crumble. This recipe was chosen by the King, then the Prince of Wales, as his favourite recipe when he guest edited Country Life’s November 2018 issue.
Queen Elizabeth II’s drop scones or ‘Scotch pancakes’
The American pancake is famed for its fluffy stacks, but this version is known for its flat finish and can be served with jam, butter or maple syrup. Legend has it that this recipe was sent by Queen Elizabeth II to President Eisenhower around 1960.
Princess Anne’s devilled pheasant
Another John Williams creation, this is a devilishly spiced sweet and sour stew. Apparently, it’s Princess Anne’s favourite game recipe and perhaps that’s down to the healthy dollop of Sharwood’s Green Label mango chutney that’s added at the end. If it isn’t pheasant season, you can always use frozen birds.