A Buckingham Palace favorite, this recipe for Diamond Jubilee Cake is Her Majesty’s favorite tea cake, as well as the birthday cake of choice for the young royal princes. Also known as Chocolate Biscuit Cake (how terribly common….) this was the groom’s cake Wills chose when he tied the knot with cute little Kate.
So why, you may ask, do the Brits insist on calling cookies “biscuits?” I’ll tell you. Despite the eventual takeover by the intolerant English colonists (anyone up for a little witch burning?) New York started out as Nieuw Amsterdam. The fun loving, money-making Dutch were partial to little baked cakes called koekje.
Grab a copy of Russell Shorto’s The Island at the Center of the World to truly appreciate how the Dutch are really the ones to thank for New York’s inherent fabulousity.
Anyway, in this “biscuit” cake the main ingredients are crumbled Mc Vities rich tea biscuits, which are not so sweet cookies which you can buy at some specialty stores (or get them here on Amazon) tossed with lots of chocolate enriched with eggs, sugar and butter. It all firms up in the ‘fridge and then is enrobed in a rich chocolate glaze. My decorations included the white chocolate Imperial Crown and some gold sugar sparkles.
ROYALS: THEY’RE NOT LIKE US!
♠ Did you know that the Queen Mother’s nickname was Cake? If you don’t believe me, no less an authority than Deborah Mitford Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire, recalls at some wedding way back the Mommy Queen exclaimed ’Oh! The cake!’ and the name stuck. If you don’t believe me read Debo’s memoir Wait for Me!
♠ While we’re on the topic of “Cake,” the fun-loving consort of King Georges VI, is credited with such witticisms as using the palace intercom to call down to the (mostly gay) kitchen staff: “I don’t know about you old queens down there, but this old queen up here needs a drink.”
♠ Did you know that the little darling of the House of Saxe-Coberg-Gotha, Queen Victoria, had a private kitchen installed in her palace exclusively for her private use? Seems that whipping up a batch or two of Linzer Tortes for her brood of nine took her mind off the devastating loss of her husband, Prince Albert.
♠ Prince Philip on the topic of Chinese food: “If it has four legs and it’s not a chair, if it’s got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane and if it swims and it’s not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.”
We served this cake at a smart get-together out here in fashionable East Hampton. Our host works with Prince Charles on one of his charities, finds Prince Andrew the chummiest of the bunch and has been personally insulted by the Duke of Edinburg — and he loved the cake. So how about that?
Click here for the recipe for Diamond Jubilee Cake.
