Royal family

Great Royal Bake Off: The Royal Family Celebrates Special Occasions With These Favorite Dessert Recipes

Dessert is almost always on the menu for the British royal family. They celebrate birthdays with chocolate cake and have cookies at Christmas.

by Mandi Kerr

Published on August 9, 2020

3 min read

Most members of the British royal family indulge in sweets from time to time. They, like many other non-royals, mark special occasions such as birthdays or holidays with dessert. They each have their own favorite confection and ahead are just a few of the recipes they turn to again and again.

Queen Elizabeth loves chocolate biscuit cake

Members of the British royal family at the 2015 Trooping the Colour | Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Queen Elizabeth II doesn’t need an occasion to eat a piece of her beloved chocolate biscuit cake. A big fan of chocolate, the queen eats chocolate cake daily, according to former royal chef Darren McGrady.

Spending 15 years cooking for the leader of the monarchy, McGrady learned the queen has a major sweet tooth. And the chocolate biscuit cake is her far and away favorite, according to him.

“The Chocolate Biscuit Cake is the only cake that goes back again and again and again every day until it’s all gone,” McGrady said. “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.”

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge supposedly loves the chocolate biscuit cake too. One showed up on the menu at his 2011 royal wedding to Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.

Making the chocolate biscuit cake requires time and lots of chocolate

Thankfully for royal fans and chocolate lovers everywhere, McGrady’s shared the recipe for the chocolate biscuit cake. First with Today in 2017 and then later on his website, The Royal Chef, the cake requires the basics of most cakes: butter, sugar, and eggs. As the name suggests, there’s chocolate and biscuits aka cookies too.

Christmas means Cinnamon Stars for the royal family

Part of their holiday traditions, just like the queen’s annual speech and church at Sandringham, is Christmas cookies. The royal chefs shared their recipe for Cinnamon Stars in December 2019 on the royal family’s website.

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Birthdays mean chocolate cake … but not the chocolate biscuit cake

Birthdays in the royal family mean chocolate cake. A different recipe from the chocolate biscuit cake, McGrady would whip up this dessert dating back to Queen Victoria every year to mark a royal’s birthday.

Again, the chef’s shared the recipe. And he even appeared in a step-by-step video baking the cake.

Like the chocolate biscuit cake, the royal family’s chocolate cake recipe calls for eggs, sugar, and chocolate. McGrady shared a detailed version of the chocolate cake recipe on his website, The Royal Chef.

Kate Middleton once gifted Queen Elizabeth homemade chutney

Ahead of her first Christmas with the royal family, Catherine had to decide what to give to the queen. In the documentary, Our Queen at Ninety, she admitted to feeling nervous about gifting Queen Elizabeth II homemade chutney, a recipe she learned from her own grandmother.

“I was worried what to give the queen as her Christmas present,” Catherine said. “I was thinking, ‘Gosh, what should I give her?’ And I thought back to what would I give my own grandparents. And I thought, ‘I’ll make her something.’ Which could have gone horribly wrong.”

In 2012, Catherine’s sister, Pippa Middleton, shared the chutney recipe in her Celebrate cookbook. It requires apples, onions, zucchini or summer squash, dates, and a mix of spices.

The best part is, the chutney can stay in the fridge for up to a month after opening. Although judging by the ingredients it won’t last nearly that long.