6 Meghan-Approved Bakes To Try In Lockdown – Including Her Wedding Cake

Are you even in quarantine if you haven't baked banana bread? According to Marie Claire, Meghan "is known to be a lover of banana bread." Royals, eh? They're just like us.

According to a number of sources, during one visit to a family-run farm in Dubbo, Australia, in 2018, Meghan brought a home-made banana bread along with two special ingredients added in: chocolate chips and ginger.

Although we don't have a step-by-step guide available for making Meghan's special loaf, you shouldn't go too far wrong with the following:

Ingredients

• 140g butter, softened, plus extra for the tin
• 140g caster sugar
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 140g self-raising flour
• 2 bananas, mashed
• 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped crystallised ginger

Method

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.
2. Butter a 2lb loaf tin and line the base and sides with baking parchment.
3. Cream the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Slowly add 2 beaten large eggs with a little of the 140g flour.
5. Fold in the remaining flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 2 mashed bananas, the chocolate chips, and the ginger.
6. Pour into the tin and bake for about half an hour.

In 2014, Meghan shared a recipe for Ginger Berry Crumble with food site Cooking Light. Here's how she does it:

Ingredients (filling):

• 2 cups blueberries
• 2 cups blackberries
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger

Ingredients (topping):

• 2 and 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 5 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 5 tablespoons almond flour (or regular flour)
• 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 5 tablespoons coconut oil (cold-pressed and at room temperature)
• 1 teaspoon flax seeds (optional)

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 177C. Rinse all berries and place in a baking dish. Add vanilla, lemon juice, maple syrup, ginger, and toss well.
2. In a separate bowl, start mixing oats, almond flour, walnuts, salt, vanilla, cinnamon, and flax seeds. Mix well before adding maple syrup and coconut oil. Mix until combined.
3. Pour the crumble mixture evenly over baking dish containing berries. Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes, or until the fruit juices are bubbling around the edges and lightly browned.

I don't speak French, but as a self-described cake connoisseur, I completely understood those three little words: 'Tiny. Chocolate. Cakes.' Meghan first shared this decadent recipe in March of 2015, and confessed that she loves “the ritual of cooking” but “baking … not so much.” “It needs to be worth it," she wrote. “It needs to be soul-satisfying like a good hug on a bad day. And, it needs to taste unquestionably delicious.”

A woman after my own heart.

The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

• 200g semi-sweetened chocolate
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 2 tbsp of unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp of all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg yolks

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 232C.
2. Melt the butter and the chocolate together.
3. Combine the eggs, egg yolk, and sugar together in a mixing bowl and beat for 3 minutes, until light and fluffy.
4. Fold the flour and chocolate.
5. Pour into 2-3 inch cake molds rimmed with greased parchment paper, or individual ramekins.
6. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes or until the edges are set and the middle is still soft. You want the center to be gooey, so I would stick to about six minutes since they will continue cooking from their own heat even when you pull them from the oven.
7. Carefully lift cake molds, and remove parchment liner, unless in ramekins (in which case, you’re all set!)
8. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or fresh berries if desired, then serve immediately with ice cream.

Now, I haven't quite mastered how to cook an actual creme bruleé but The Tig's seriously wholesome oaty recipe seems far more achievable. Full of seeds and raisins, it's certainly a more nutritious treat, yet the sugary topping makes it a little more sinful.

The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

• 2 cups of rolled oats
• 1 tsp coarse salt
• 1/4 cup of sunflower seeds
• 1/4 cup of raisins
• 1/4 cup of pumpkin seeds
• 1/4 cup of flaxseeds
• 1/4 of ground hemp seeds
• Warm milk
• 4 cups of water
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup of sugar
• 2 tbsp of bee pollen

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 218C.
2. Place the oats on a baking sheet and bake, stirring the oats occasionally, until they smell toasty and are golden brown, about 10 minutes. Keep the oven on.
3. Meanwhile, bring the water to a boil in a large, heavy saucepan. Transfer the baked oats to the water along with the salt and stir to combine. Lower the heat and simmer until the oats are softened and thickened, about 10 minutes. Stir in all of the seeds and the raisins and transfer the mixture to a baking dish or a pie dish.
4. Place the dish in the oven and bake until all of the excess liquid has evaporated and the top is lightly browned and just firm to the touch, 10 to 15 minutes.
5. Remove the oatmeal from the oven and turn the oven from bake to broil.
6. Evenly sprinkle the sugar over the surface of the oatmeal, using at least 1/4 cup and up to 1/2 cup if you like it especially sweet. Place the dish on a rack set 4 to 6 inches under the broiler and cook, with a watchful eye, until the sugar has melted and caramelized, and is nearly, but not entirely, burned. Carefully remove the oatmeal from the broiler and serve immediately with the bee pollen sprinkled on top, if you’d like.
7. Serve hot with a pitcher of warm milk alongside, if desired.

Like many social-media-loving millennials, Meghan found inspiration for The Tig from some healthy living influencers. She shared a recipe for Spelt Anzac biscuits from a native Australian with a passion for healthy living: food blogger Nicole Joy. The biccies are an Aussie and New Zealand classic, eaten since World War I.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup of spelt flour
• 1/2 desiccated coconut
• 1/2 coconut sugar
• 1/2 oats
• Pinch of fine sea salt
• 1/4 coconut oil
• 2 tsp maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp bi-carb soda
• Vanilla extract
• 2 tsp warm water

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 150C and line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the spelt flour, coconut, sugar and salt in a large bowl.
3. In a small saucepan, melt the coconut oil then add the Maple syrup, vanilla, and bicarbonate of soda.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir well. Add the water before shaping into balls and flattening with a fork.
5. Bake for about 25 minutes and allow to cool for 30 minutes. I like mine crunchy so I actually left them in the oven (turned off) for an extra 5-10 minutes. Err on the lower side of 25 minutes if you prefer it to be chewy.

Brace your whisk, it's time to attempt Prince Harry and Meghan's actual wedding cake. Ahead of the couple's big day in 2018, Kensington Palace released the amalfi lemon and elderflower recipe to try at home, including a video with head baker Claire Ptak. Requiring 200 Amalfi lemons and at least 500 eggs, you may be thinking that this may be too much of challenge even during quarantine (if not, see here) but you can try a downsized version provided by Good To Know.

This recipe serves 12 people, not 1,200:

Ingredients

• 225g/8oz butter, softened
• 225g/8oz caster sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 225g/8oz self raising flour, sifted
• zest and juice 1 lemon
• 100ml/4floz elderflower cordial
• 30ml/ 2 tbsp granulated sugar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/ Fan160C/Gas Mark 4. Grease a (20cm) round, deep loose-based tin and base line with baking parchment.
2. Place the butter sugar and lemon zest in a large bowl. Use an electric whisk to beat the butter and sugar together untl they are pale and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs, whisking well between additions and adding 2 tbsp of the flour with the last egg – this will prevent curdling.
3. Sift over the remaining flour, then gently fold in with a metal spoon along with 2 tbsp hot water. Spoon into the prepared tin, level the surface and bake for 45-50mins or until it is shrinking away from the sides of the tin. A fine skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean. Cool in the tin for 5 mins.
4. Squeeze the lemon juice, then sieve to remove the bits, stir in the cordial. Use the fine skewer to prick the cake all over, pour over the syrup then sprinkle over the sugar – it should sink in but leave a crunchy crust. Leave to cool completely, before removing the cake from the tin. Serve in wedges.