Celebrate the Queen's Jubilee With Coronation Chicken & Platinum Pudding

Like a royal version of the Great British Baking Show, the Platinum Pudding Competition pits bakers around the country against each other in a contest to create a dessert fit for the queen—and enter into a long line of dishes designed to celebrate the monarchy.

Run by Fortnum & Mason, the upscale department store known for its focus on refined luxury foods, the contest gave anyone (over the age of eight) in Britain the opportunity to submit a recipe to celebrate and be served at the Platinum Jubilee events celebrating the Queen’s 70th year on the throne. Judges include OG GBBO judge Mary Berry, Fortnum & Mason’s own head chef, and the chef from Buckingham Palace, among others. The requirements include that it has a memorable story, be simple enough for home bakers, and taste “just right.”

Though the country currently seeks a dessert deserving of a spot on the Jubilee lunch table, the Queen’s earlier events spawned their own royal recipes. Seventy years ago, when she first stepped into her current role, the Queen’s celebration banquet included a chicken dish now known as coronation chicken.

Likely based on a dish called [Jubilee chicken] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_chicken), created to celebrate her grandfather’s Jubilee in 1935, Queen Elizabeth’s coronation chicken recipe came from food writer Constance Spry and chef Rosemary Hume. It had to be made ahead, so the pair created a picnic-friendly “cold chicken in a curry cream sauce with a well-seasoned dressed salad of rice, green peas and mixed herbs,” per Buckingham Palace. An updated version of coronation chicken, also called [Jubilee chicken] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_chicken), was served 20 years ago at Queen Elizabeth’s own Jubilee, this one eschewing the powdered spices in favor of fresh ginger, lime, parsley, and nutmeg.

But for this year’s Platinum events, chicken is out and pudding, in the British sense, meaning any dessert, is in. And perhaps in the future, it will be remade into a coronation cake for a future royal, a la Jubilee chicken —or, depending on the fate of the monarchy, as a dissolution date cake or abolishment apple pie. Who knows? In the meantime, have some pudding.