The Duchess of Cornwall has joined Dame Mary Berry to announce the winning recipe of the competition to design a Platinum Pudding dedicated to the Queen.
The competition, a collaboration between royal grocer Fortnum & Mason and the Big Jubilee Lunch, forms part of the celebrations in honour of the Queen’s 70 years on the throne.
The results will be unveiled during an hour-long BBC One programme, The Jubilee Pudding: 70 Years in the Baking, which airs on May 12 at 8pm and charts Fortnum & Mason’s competition to find “an original and celebratory cake, tart or pudding fit for the Queen”.
The quest to mark the monarch’s jubilee with a new signature dessert follows a long tradition of inventive baking in honour of royal celebrations, from Coronation Chicken for the Queen’s coronation to the Victoria sponge named after Queen Victoria.
The nationwide competition saw Fortnum & Mason, in conjunction with the Big Lunch charity, who are an official partner of the Platinum Jubilee weekend, challenge people to create an iconic dish which not only is delicious but also “makeable in a home kitchen, telling a story, and having the potential to stand the test of time and become Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Pudding”.
Nearly 5,000 entries from across the country were whittled down to a final short list of 50 following a blind judging on recipe alone and which was selected by Fortnum & Mason’s executive chef, Roger Pizey, and chef director, Sydney Aldridge, and team.
Joined by Buckingham Palace’s head chef, Mark Flanagan, Alridge and Pizey then selected five final entries to be revealed in the BBC One programme where the bakers will prepare their recipes before presenting them to the judging panel.
Dame Mary, 87, is joined on the judging panel by other award-winning home bakers and professional chefs, as well as authors, historians and patissiers.
The panel includes MasterChef: The Professionals judge Monica Galetti, food writer Jane Dunn, baker and pastry chef Matt Adlard, and Belgian author and culinary historian, Regula Ysewijn.
Dame Mary introduces the Duchess of Cornwall, who is a patron of the Big Jubilee Lunch, as a special guest to announce the winner of the competition in the programme.
The winning recipe will be available online on the BBC’s Good Food website, as well as the websites of Fortnum & Mason’s and the Big Jubilee Lunch.
The Jubilee Pudding: 70 Years in the Baking has been made by Sidney Street productions and airs on BBC One at 8pm on May 12.
