Pudding on the style for the Jubilee
Baking royalty Dame Mary Berry meets actual royalty in a special show for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee which sees her find the perfect dessert for Her Majesty
WHAT better way to celebrate 70 years on the throne than with a huge party? – the celebrations for the Queen’s Jubilee next month are set to be spectacular, with a fourday bank holiday weekend running from June 2-5.
But no celebration would be complete without a cake, and the people in charge decided to get the nation involved by launching a baking competition.
The Big Jubilee Lunch teamed up with Fortnum & Mason – grocer to the Royal Household – to launch the Platinum Pudding Competition, a nationwide contest to find a new pudding to dedicate to Her Majesty’s remarkable seven decades on the throne.
They invited UK residents aged eight and over to create the perfect Platinum Pudding recipe, and almost 5,000 entries flooded in.
In BBC’s The Jubilee Pudding: 70 Years in the Baking, cameras follow the five exceptional home-baking finalists – Kathryn, Jemma, Sam, Shabnam and Susan – as they arrive at Fortnum & Mason’s shop on Piccadilly to prepare their creations for an expert judging panel of award-winning home bakers, professional chefs, authors, historians and patissiers.
Chaired by ‘Queen of the Home Kitchen’ Dame Mary Berry, the panel includes chef and broadcaster Monica Galetti, Great British Bake Off winner Rahul Mandal, Fortnum & Mason’s Executive Pastry Chef, Roger Pizey, food writer, author and baker Jane Dunn, pastry chef Matt Adlard, culinary historian and author Regula Ysewijn, bestselling food writer Jane Dunn, and the head chef at Buckingham Palace, Mark Flanagan.
Mary says: “I’m so thrilled to be panel chair for this exciting competition, and to work alongside such a wonderful team of judges.”
Asked what she would have made if making a pudding for the Queen, Mary says: “I’d make something that would be possible for a street party, a family celebration, and portable. Something that could be made ahead of an event and something with favourite flavours, not too unusual and spectacular.” So what will the judges be using as criteria to create the Jubilee Pudding?
The winning dish will be an important part of the street parties and events, so it needs to be easy enough for people everywhere to recreate at home, so the panel are looking for ingredients and kitchen equipment readily available to people all over the world, rather than fancy gadgets and complicated instructions. They are also seeking a pudding made with passion and pride, as well as recipes inspired by Her Majesty The Queen’s life, and those handed down through the generations, or a special family memory. Finally, as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, it should taste delicious, and, as this one will be served to The Queen, it also needs to look the part. At the end of the show, the identity of the winning baker and pudding will be announced by the Duchess of Cornwall. Mary says: “It was very special to have the Duchess of Cornwall at the final and she had a very special role. It was a privilege to hand her the envelope for her to announce the winner. She was delightful.”