ALL RISE! It’s a Royal Bake Of f
Which cake fit for a queen will Mary Berry pick in the final of the Platinum Pudding contest?
Forget all the other cooking competitions. The Great British Bake Off and MasterChef are all very well and good, but now Dame Mary Berry (left) presides over a contest that offers a far greater prize than even those prestigious shows.
This time the winner will truly be serving the nation, paying tribute to Her
Majesty and her
70-year reign by conjuring up a new recipe that generations of Britons will, it is hoped, be making far into the future.
The task is daunting, if very simple: to come up with a national dish in the tradition of Coronation chicken (created for the Queen’s crowning in 1953) and the Victoria sponge (a favourite of the cake-loving monarch) to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
The only rules are that it needs to be a cake, tart or pudding that can be made in an ordinary kitchen using easily available ingredients. The plan is that we’ll be all tucking into Platinum Pudding when it’s served up the length and breadth of the kingdom as the whole country comes together for the Big Jubilee Lunch on Sunday, June 5.
The public has already responded with unbridled enthusiasm to Dame Mary’s challenge, with almost 5,000 amateur bakers applying to take part in the hope of being the one whose creation is chosen. From these were selected a shortlist of 50 recipes, which have been judged blind by experts from Fortnum & Mason (the favoured shop of the Royal Family) – executive pastry chef Roger Pizey and chef director Sydney Aldridge – and whittled down to the five finalists now vying for baking immortality: Kathryn, Jemma, Sam, Shabnam and Susan.
All now have the support of Pizey and his team as they perfect their recipes, but the pressure is on as they prepare to present the results to the judges. There’s a formidable line-up, with Dame Mary as chair joined by MasterChef’s Monica Galetti, food writer Jane Dunn, Bake Off winner Rahul Mandal, pastry chef and food influencer Matt Adlard and culinary historian Regula Ysewijn.
Finally, there is the Royal seal of approval as the Duchess of Cornwall, patron of the Big Jubilee Lunch, meets the finalists and announces the winner. Brace yourself for what you might call a slice of history.