More than two billion viewers around the world watched the fairy tale wedding of Prince William and the former Catherine (Kate) Middleton - now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge -- in London's Westminster Abbey this morning.
Some 10,000 canapés are on the menu for the Buckingham Palace lunchtime reception for 650-odd guests drawn from the congregation who attended the wedding, reports Associated Press. They include: Cornish crab salad on lemon blini; pressed duck terrine with fruit chutney; roulade of goats' cheese with caramelized walnuts; an assortment of palmiers and cheese straws; Scottish smoked salmon rose on beetroot blini; miniature watercress and asparagus tart; poached asparagus spears with Hollandaise sauce; quails eggs with celery salt; Scottish langoustines with lemon mayonnaise pressed confit of pork belly with crayfish and crackling; wild mushroom and celeriac chausson; bubble and squeak with confit shoulder of lamb; grain mustard and honey-glazed chipolatas; smoked haddock fishcake with pea guacamole; miniature Yorkshire pudding with roast fillet of beef and horseradish mousse; gateau opera; blood orange pate de fruit; raspberry financier; rhubarb crème brulee tartlet; passion fruit praline; white chocolate ganache truffle; milk chocolate praline with nuts; and dark chocolate ganache truffle. Guests will also be served Pol Roger NV brut reserve champagne - along with other soft and alcoholic drinks.
And the reception will include the cutting of the wedding cake, a multi-tiered classic English fruitcake. Middleton chose famed British pastry chef Fiona Cairns to create the cake, which will have cream-and-white frosting decorated with a British floral theme, using a traditional technique of intricate piping to create 3-D scrollwork, leaves and flowers. Cairns, whose company bakes about 120,000 cakes a year in her factory in the Midlands, about 100 miles north of London, says a fruit cake is very moist, full of roasted nuts, raisins, currants, grated oranges, lemons and spices, and, most importantly, drenched in brandy, reports USA Today.It's a very traditional English wedding cake - in fact, until recently, it was the only choice for many years," Cairns, author of Bake & Decorate: Charming Cakes, Cupcakes & Cookies for Every Occasion, said. "It's absolutely delicious - it tastes amazing."
Prince William will also be able to enjoy the grooms cake, his favorite cookie cake, or what the British call a "biscuit cake." William's special fondness for McVitie's Rich Tea biscuits, which he and his brother Prince Harry enjoyed as children when they had afternoon tea with their grandmother, is made of some 1,700 biscuits and 40 pounds of chocolate. It is a variation of a 100-some year old palace recipe developed by Princess Diana's former chef, Darren McGrady, and it is also the Queen's favorite cake.
We sincerely hope the happy couple will live happily ever after.
