Royal Chef Shares Recipe For Queen Elizabeth's Favorite Chocolate Birthday Cake

Apr 21, 2020 by apost team

The Queen of England turned 94 on April 21, making her the longest reigning monarch in British history. While we can’t be sure of how Queen Elizabeth II manages to remain so healthy, her diet probably has something to do with it. That includes British standards like tea and the Queen’s favorite snack, a chocolate biscuit cake, which she is undoubtedly enjoying today. Luckily for us, we not only have some insight into her diet, but the Queen’s personal chef even shared the royal cake recipe with reporters back in 2017.

If you’ve ever wanted to have a birthday celebration fit for royalty, the Royal Chef, Darren McGrady, is helping to make that a real possibility. Back in 2017, he shared the Queen’s favorite chocolate cake recipe with TODAY while also providing a bit of insight into the Queen’s dining habits.

"This chocolate biscuit cake is Her Royal Majesty the Queen's favorite afternoon tea cake by far," chef McGrady, The Royal Chef and former personal chef to Queen Elizabeth II, told TODAY. "This cake is probably the only one that is sent into the royal dining room again and again until it has all gone."

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According to McGrady, the Queen’s chocolate cake fanaticism runs so deep that in the unlikely event that the Queen doesn’t manage to finish every last bit of it at Buckingham Palace, she takes it with her to her other residence at Windsor Castle. When he worked for the Queen, McGrady even remembers taking the train from London to the castle carrying a half-eaten cake in his lap the chef told TODAY.

What makes this cake special — and perhaps different from cakes baked in the U.S., for example — is that it includes classic English cookies called Rich tea biscuits. That gives this decadent cake a bit of much needed crunch to balance out the richness of the chocolate frosting. Check out the the full recipe here. It’s simpler than you might think.

But beyond the 94-year-old Queen’s penchant for chocolate biscuit cake, the monarch is also especially partial to a few other English specialities. According to TODAY, on a typical day the Queen breaks her fast with a few biscuits and Earl Grey tea without milk or sugar. That’s followed by a second course of cereal — she especially enjoys Special K — and fruit. But like most of us, the Queen likes a bit of variety, too, and so she occasionally switches up her first meal with toast and scrambled eggs.

Lunch is a stripped-down affair for Her Majesty, as she’s partial to simple midday meals that avoid starchy foods like potatoes and pasta, according to TODAY. In that vein, a favorite of hers is grilled Dover sole, a white fish, with spinach or zucchini. That brings us to what is traditionally the largest meal of the day — dinner.

For supper, Her Majesty enjoys a nice selection of meat, though never rare and always well done. Some sources say she favors lamb, roast beef, mutton, grouse and salmon, though others report that the Queen is a fan of Sunday roasts after church. Regardless, meat certainly plays a large role at the Queen’s dinner table. And since the Queen apparently has a sweet tooth, TODAY also reports that she likes to finish her dinner off with a little dessert such as fruit from her Windsor Castle greenhouses or chocolate — as we have learned, the Queen loves her chocolate.

So as the Queen turns an impressive 94 years old today, we might want to learn a thing or two from Her Majesty’s dietary habits. Fellow chocolate lovers who have April birthdays can even celebrate alongside her, provided they have those special English biscuits.

Do you share any favorite foods in common with the Queen? Let us know and pass this along to your friends and family so they too can bake a the Queen's royal chocolate biscuit cake.