A royal wedding cake with a southern touch!

So, yeah, just like billions of others, I caught that royal wedding bug last weekend when Prince Harry married Meghan Markle.  I set my alarm for 4:00 last Saturday morning and I woke up and turned on the TV to watch every single second of it.  Larry woke up and joined me around 6:00 and we watched it together.  Such a gorgeous, perfect wedding and they looked so in love.  Yep, I cried, but mostly because his beautiful mother wasn't there and she should have been.  Sigh.  As soon as Harry and William stepped out to begin their walk to St. George's Chapel, both so very handsome dressed in full military uniform, the waterworks were ON around here.  

The thing I loved the most, though, was how UN-royal the whole thing was.  How the two of them had their OWN wedding and shucked so many royal traditions.  God, how I love them.

Their cake was no exception.  No stuffy old fruit cake for those two!  They opted for a light, fluffy lemon elderflower cake with buttercream frosting.  I just had to try it.  

So I did today!  On our Memorial Day.  Larry and I had hamburgers, hot dogs and this amazing cake.  Now if you search the internet, you will find hundreds of recipes for this cake.  This is the one I chose.  

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups cake flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup whole milk 

4 large egg whites

2 cups sugar

1 Tbsp lemon zest

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1 1/2 tsp lemon extract

You'll need all this!

Directions:

Beat the butter and sugar on high until it's all nice and fluffy

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside

Beat the butter and sugar on high until light and fluffy and add in lemon zest

Using a fork, whisk egg whites, milk and extract together in a bowl

Alternate the dry and wet ingredients into the butter mixture beating on medium until incorporated

Prepare two 8-inch round cake pans with baker's spray

Pour batter evenly into the pans and bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes

For the buttercream frosting:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup butter, room temperature (that's three sticks!)

3 cups powdered sugar

1/4 c elderflower liqueur (I used St. Germain)

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp lemon extract

Directions:

Cream butter until smooth

On low, add powdered sugar one cup at a time

Add elderflower liqueur, lemon extract and salt

Whip for five minutes

Yummmmm!  Buttercream!  With elderflower liqueur!  

Larry picked a magnolia bloom off our tree in the backyard and I placed it on the top.  A royal wedding cake with a southern touch!

We felt like royalty, fo' sho'.