Nip of Dubonnet livens up pick of platinum puddings
THEY were asked to create a Platinum Jubilee pudding fit for the Queen.
The five home cooks who have been shortlisted for the baking competition have taken that message to heart, it appears, as they include ingredients from the Home Nations so close to Her Majesty’s heart – as well as her favourite tipple.
One entry, a Jubilee Bundt cake, is based on the classic Victoria sponge shaped in a crown with a dash of Dubonnet in the jam, after the chef ’s mother told her it was the Queen’s favourite drink.
Another uses ingredients of Scottish berries, Yorkshire rhubarb, Welsh cakes and Irish butter and cream to “represent the UK coming together”.
A third, a rose falooda cake recipe, which took inspiration from the streets of Mumbai, is intended to reflect the Queen’s “very inclusive” reign, and the multiracial, multicultural society she has “embraced”.
The Platinum Pudding shortlist is completed by a lemon Swiss roll and amaretti trifle and a passion fruit and thyme frangipane tart.
The bakers have been selected from nearly 5,000 entries from across the country as part of the competition between royal grocer Fortnum &
‘My mum told me she read that the Queen’s favourite tipple is Dubonnet so I incorporated it into my jam’
Mason and the Big Jubilee Lunch. The Duchess of Cornwall and Dame Mary Berry will announce the winner during a special BBC One programme, The Queen’s Jubilee Pudding: 70 Years In The Baking , at 8pm on May 12.
One of the finalists, Sam Smith, a 32-year-old lawyer from Warwickshire, submitted a Jubilee Bundt cake. “My mum told me that she read that the Queen’s favourite tipple is Dubonnet so I decided to incorporate it into my jam so it would have a bit of a kick,” she said.
Susan Gardner, a 65-year-old retired sales manager from Argyll and Bute in Scotland, said. “I wanted to create something that would represent the UK coming together, using something special from each part of the UK: Scottish berries, Yorkshire rhubarb, Welsh cakes and Irish butter and cream.”
Shabnam Russo, who lives in north London with her husband and two children, entered the competition after taking inspiration from her grandparents in Mumbai. “Queen Elizabeth’s reign has really been very inclusive,” she said.