In June, Queen Elizabeth II will complete 70 years on the throne. To mark this milestone, social media is awash with the trend #PlatinumPudding. It started as a nationwide competition in the UK last month, and was launched by the upscale London-based departmental store Fortnum & Mason. The winner will take home a selection of products from Fortnum & Mason, and the recipe will be revealed to the public. In that sense, it will enter the cookbooks of British culinary history.
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When the Queen was crowned in 1953, Le Cordon Bleu invented a new dish named the Poulet Reine Elizabeth, popular as coronation chicken, for the coronation banquet. It has taken 70 years to find something similar. The Platinum Pudding, therefore, is the first successor and the competition is stiff.
Chefs and bakers across Britain—some as young as 8 years—have come up with recipes fit for royalty. Her majesty will pick the winner on February 6. The participants need not be professional bakers. The idea is to make something magnificent yet simple to recreate.
An AFP story published yesterday points out the biggest challenge is, the participants don’t know the Queen’s ‘preferred flavours’.“It's something that people, the press in the UK have been trying to find out for as long as she has been on the throne, it's a closely guarded secret,” says culinary historian Regula Ysewijn in the story Brits on platinum pudding quest for queen's jubilee. She suggests that chocolate could be one of her preferred flavours.
As a tribute to the moment, here’s a wonderful recipe of a lemon pudding with a light spongy base. It’s by author and YouTuber Bonita Hussey. It is fairly easy to follow and the lemons could be replaced by lime, if needed. It makes for a perfect no-sweat weekend treat.
