The Duchess of Cambridge officially married into the royal family in 2011, but that doesn’t mean she’s got everyone’s meal preferences down just yet.
During an outing at the King Henry’s Walk Garden in London on Tuesday, the former Kate Middleton was chatting and making pizzas with a group of children when one asked a question Catherine herself couldn’t answer.
“Has the queen ever had pizza?” one child asked.
“You know, that’s such a good question. I don’t know,” the duchess said, in a video clip captured by royal correspondent Rebecca English of the Daily Mail.
“I don’t know. Maybe next time I see her, shall I ask?” Kate said.
A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman wouldn’t comment, telling HuffPost “this isn’t something we would give guidance on.”
Darren McGrady, former royal chef to Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana, told HuffPost in an email Tuesday that he “never served [Her Majesty] pizza once” in the 11 years that he worked for her. The chef added that he served pizza for staff lunch all the time.
“The Queen didn’t even have it on the menu when we were in Palermo, Sicily on HMY Britannia,” McGrady said. “The chefs had to go ashore after royal dinner to try it. I didn’t start really cooking pizzas until I moved to Kensington Palace.”
There were at least two royals who absolutely loved their pizza.
“William and Harry would have had it every night if Nanny had let them,” McGrady added. “They loved it.”
However, there is one dish that the queen absolutely can’t live without: chocolate biscuit cake that McGrady used to make.
“Now the chocolate biscuit cake is the only cake that goes back [to the queen] again and again and again every day until it’s all gone,” McGrady told Recipes Plus in 2017.
“She’ll take a small slice every day until eventually there is only one tiny piece, but you have to send that up, she wants to finish the whole of that cake.”
Her Majesty loves the concoction so much that a member of the senior staff would travel with it to make sure the queen could have her slice.
“I use to travel on the train from London to Windsor Castle with the biscuit cake in a tin on my knee,” McGrady told HuffPost at the time. “It was half eaten.”
McGrady gave HuffPost his recipe for chocolate biscuit cake, if you’d like to start eating dessert like the queen:
Chocolate Biscuit Cake
Makes one 6-inch round cake ― 8 portions
Ingredients:
4 ounces dark chocolate (for the cake)
4 ounces granulated sugar
4 ounces unsalted butter (softened)
1 egg
8 ounces Rich tea biscuits
1/2 teaspoon butter for greasing
8 ounces dark chocolate (for coating)
1 ounce chocolate (for decoration)
Directions:
1. Lightly grease a 6-inch by 2 1/2-inch cake ring and place on a tray on a sheet of parchment paper.
2. Break each of the biscuits into almond-size pieces by hand and set aside.
3. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until the mixture starts to lighten.
4. Melt the 4 ounces of chocolate and add to the butter mixture whilst constantly stirring.
5. Beat in the egg to the mixture.
6. Fold in the biscuit pieces until they are all coated with the chocolate mixture.
7. Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake ring. Try to fill all of the gaps on the bottom of the ring because this will be the top when it is un-molded.
8. Chill the cake in the refrigerator for at least three hours.
9. Remove the cake from the refrigerator and let it stand while you melt the 8 ounces of chocolate.
10. Slide the ring off the cake and turn it upside down onto a cake wire.
11. Pour the melted chocolate over the cake and smooth the top and sides using a palette knife.
12. Allow the chocolate to set at room temperature.
13. Carefully run a knife around the bottom of the cake where the chocolate has stuck it to the cake wire and lift it onto a tea plate.
14. Melt the remaining 1 ounce of chocolate and use to decorate the top of the cake.
Happy eating!
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