When the news came, Fiona Cairns was standing in the hallway of her England home arranging miniature blue waves around a pirate galleon chocolate cake for a photo shoot.
"The camera clicked and I thought, ‘Oh good, the photo shoot will soon be over, I'll be able to clean up and everyone will go home'. And then my mobile rang..."
There's still a nervous tremble in her voice when Fiona recalls the moment her husband relayed that crucial message from Clarence House.
All thoughts of taking photos for the Birthday Cake Book fell away as she heard those three little words: They've chosen us. "I'll never forget that feeling. I was very excited and also worried, because it's such a big responsibility," she says.
Fiona and a select small baking team treasured the news they would be producing the wedding cake for the soon-to-be Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in secret as they liaised with the royal couple. They even hid their work from the rest of the staff, revealing only that it was an ‘important commission'. "We were on an amazing adventure," says the pastry chef whose factory produces 120,000 cakes a year, selling to exclusive British stores Harrods, Selfridges and Waitrose.
Like any modern bride-to-be, Kate Middleton took control of proceedings from an early stage, says Fiona, and luckily her desires chimed with the cake designer's talents.
"It was a dream brief for us, and very much Catherine's, right from the very beginning. She's very creative. We were given some lace, which we assumed was the same as the dress, so the flowers on the cake matched her gown."
Fiona, who makes Paul McCartney's Christmas cake every year, spent time with the bride-to-be and her staff, ensuring every detail was perfect, before beginning the construction of the cake.
An interior architect was employed to work out the structure of the creation made up of 17 cakes and eight tiers. "It was the biggest cake I've ever made," Fiona says.
"One of the most hairy moments was getting it from its little room to the Picture Gallery on a trolley. I ended up carrying the middle sections, so they didn't get bumped," she laughs.
Considering the floral cardigan-wearing mother-of-two looks as sweet and light as one of her cakes, the mental image of her lugging kilos worth of fruit cake up the stairs of Buckingham Palace while dodging DJs carrying massive amplifiers ready for the disco is wonderful.
"It took a long time to recover from that chaos. Looking back, I still can't believe it happened," she says. As Fiona explains, whether you're cooking for royalty or your mum on Mother's Day, great cake making relies on a few key ingredients.
"Firstly, you have to want to it. And it's better to do something really simple that you're capable of than to attempt something difficult. Either the love or stress will come through!
"Secondly, make sure you're making something not just for yourself. Think about the recipient."
