Pudding Inspiration: fit for a queen

We hope you have all heard about the Fortnum and Mason competition to create a pudding to be an important part of the celebrations marking Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee. 70 years as monarch surely deserves a special treat.

We have been polishing our pots and experimenting in the kitchen and rather than enter the competition, we would like to share this recipe with you, so you can celebrate with us. And maybe this will inspire you to create your own and enter the competition.

And we decided that there is no point settling on one pudding, when you can have two! So we have combined the quintessentially English Queen of Puddings with a nod to the Queen’s German heritage adding the flavours of a Black Forest gateau.

The enduring appeal of a Queen of Puddings became clear when we found recipes in our collection of recipe books dating from the Complete illustrated Cookery Book, 1934; The G.E.C. Cookery Book, published sometime in the 60s, which came with Sue’s Mum’s new cooker; Jane Grigson’s oft referenced English Food, 1974 and of course, competition judge Regula Ysewijn’s 2015 classic, Pride and Pudding, where, like Jane Grigson, she has traced the origin back as far as Massey and Son’s “Comprehensive Pudding Book” of 1865

And of course, because we were creating a Queen of Puddings, we used the King of pots and used our gorgeous copper loaf tin for this very special recipe.

Stage 1: Chocolate custard base