It’s history in the baking
IMAGINE if you were asked to invent a recipe for Her Majesty The Queen. What an experience and honour that would be.You’d probably feel a bit like the humble pie maker in Sing A Song Of Sixpence, proudly setting his “dainty dish” before the monarch of the time.
Not that I’m guessing it was an unqualified success, that royal pie of his, what with the four and twenty blackbirds he’d baked within it having reportedly burst into song when it was opened.
Honestly, poor chap. He must have felt just like one of those doomed MasterChef contestants who only remembers to switch on their oven when there’s just 10 minutes left.
The reason I mention all this (yes, there is one; thank you so much for your patience) is that there’s a programme on BBC1 tonight, at 8pm, where the challenge which is being set is not entirely dissimilar.
THE JUBILEE PUDDING: 70 YEARS IN THE BAKING (I trust whoever came up with that title is being hauled off to the Tower of London as we speak) follows five home bakers competing to invent a “celebratory cake, tart or pudding” to mark our monarch’s 70 years on the throne.
Run by those fine folk at Fortnum & Mason, this contest attracted nearly 5,000 applicants from all over the UK, so the whittling-down process was a sizeable task for Fortnum’s expert team (whose members included its aptly named executive pastry chef Roger Pizey).
The challenge the nation’s bakers had been set was “to create an iconic dish fulfilling the criteria of being makeable in a home kitchen, containing easily accessible ingredients, telling a story, and having the potential to stand the test of time.”
(I’d intended to enter this culinary competition myself, only I wrote in to ask how on earth a dish could be “iconic” if it hasn’t even been invented yet and for some reason they never got back to me.)
I guess it’s that last bit, the “stand the test of time” thing, that particularly appealed to many.
Once the judging panel, chaired by Mary Berry, has reached its decision, and the Duchess of Cornwall has announced the winner, that recipe – to be made available for us all to have a go at, in plenty of time for the big weekend – will have secured a place in our nation’s proud culinary history.
Which is quite something, don’t you think?
It’ll be up there with royally-inspired food that’s become embedded in our culture, such as Coronation Chicken, Victoria Sponge and Burger King, and if I were the person responsible I’d be bursting with pride.
The winner will be known, by the way, as the Platinum Pudding. Their recipe will, I mean.