The One Dessert Queen Elizabeth Has Every Day
Queen Elizabeth II may be, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other realms and territories, Queen, Head of the Commonwealth [and] Defender of the Faith (seriously, this is her full title, according to Royal Central), but she's a person too, just like the rest of us. She loves her doggies, she occasionally has a few problems with family members, she takes a drink now and then, and she's fond of fish and chips. Also, she really likes desserts. (What could me more relatable? Besides the family issues, that is.) Her favorite Christmas cookie is the seasonally-appropriate gingerbread, and her birthday cake each year is a decorative, ganache-filled chocolate masterpiece with a recipe that dates back to Queen Victoria's time.
There's another chocolate cake, though, that her majesty enjoys so much that she eats it on a regular basis. According to former palace chef Darren McGrady (via Allure), the queen's go-to dessert is a chocolate biscuit cake she even takes along with her when she goes on the road.
What goes into a cake fit for a queen?
McGrady's recipe, published in HuffPost, calls for some of the usual cake stuff — butter, sugar, egg — plus dark chocolate for flavoring and coating. Instead of flour, though, this no-bake confection is built on a base of cookies: specifically, Rich Tea Biscuits. According to Biscuit People, the Rich Tea is "crackerlike" and could be described as "staid ... in shape, colour and indeed its very nature." Despite its plain flavor and appearance, the Rich Tea is nevertheless the Great British Biscuit, and it's only fitting that it makes up the backbone of the Queen's beloved cake.
According to McGrady, while many different types of cakes are baked up in the kitchens of Buckingham Palace, usually the queen will only eat a single slice of each and the rest will go to palace staffers. The biscuit cake, however, she'll hoard all to herself. She eats just a little bit every day (gluttony, after all, is so un-queenly), but she nibbles away until it's all gone. As McGrady revealed to HuffPost, even if the queen was obliged to travel from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle, she wasn't about to leave a half-eaten cake behind, so she'd have one of her chefs bring the cake along by the next train. For that, we say, HRH deserves yet another title: she is the undisputed Queen of Chocoholics, and we salute her.