Weekend Cooking: Platinum Jubilee Pudding

This year is the platinum jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II becoming queen of both the UK as well as the Commonwealth of which Australia is a part. What does that mean? Well, it means that she has been doing the same job for 70 years! 

In the UK, next weekend is the big celebration. There is a long weekend in the UK and people are being encouraged to get together to hold Jubilee parties. Think street parties, bunting everywhere and more.  Here there are some official events, but I am not aware of anything that is being done community wise. When Princess Elizabeth became queen, there was an official dish that was created with the idea that no matter where they were in the UK, people could celebrate and many of them would be eating the same dish. That dish was coronation chicken, a cold chicken salad with curry cream sauce.

This year, there was a nationwide competition to come up with a celebration  dish, but this time it was a pudding. There was,of course, a TV show during which the winner was chosen. The winner was an amateur baker, Jemma Melvin, whose recipe was a Lemon Swiss Roll and Amaretti trifle. One of the inspirations was the lemon posset which formed part of then Princess Elizabeth's wedding feast. Here she talks about the recipe and how it honours three women, one of whom is the Queen.

Whilst we won't be necessarily doing anything to celebrate the jubilee, I did think I would have a go at making the pudding. 

If you choose to make every element from scratch, there is a fair bit of work involved, especially since the recipe apparently feeds 20 people. However, there are various points where you can take shortcuts (or as in my case where you are forced to take shortcuts), and it didn't take long for cheaper and easier versions of the recipe to start to emerge.

The elements in the official version are:

Swiss rolls

Lemon curd

St Clements Jelly

Amaretti Biscuits

Custard

Chunky Mandarin coulis

Jewelled chocolate shards

Whipped cream

I was keen to make the major elements in my version, but I did make some changes and this is where I ended up

I started with making the swiss rolls. My husband did suggest that I could just buy a pre-made swiss roll (and I have seen this in some of the easier versions of the recipe too), but that really was the element that I definitely wanted to make because it has been a while since I made a swiss roll, even though they are pretty easy to make. I was really happy with how this turned out, so first element done.

The next thing to be made was lemon curd, which is gets spread inside the swiss roll. It just so happened that I already had some homemade curd in the fridge, so I used that instead of making a new batch. Second element done.

The next element was supposed to be St Clements Jelly, made from scratch using lemon and orange peel and gelatin leaves. I knew that this was one area where I was going to adapt because I did have some time constraints today. Instead I used lemon flavoured jelly crystals to make the jelly.  Third element done.

The fourth element of the recipe was the one that I struggled with the most, and that was the lemon custard. I have made custard numerous times, including for custard tarts and milk tarts and for vanilla slices but the recipe just did not work for me. I usually use milk to make custard but this recipe called for cream rather than milk. The first time I made it, the custard split with the oil from the cream left creating pools of oil throughout. I figured I must have done it incorrectly, and I had all the ingredients so I thought I would try again, only to have the same thing happen again. Luckily I had a box of long life custard in the cupboard so I ended up using that instead. However, I think when you look at the finished result, I probably should only have used part of the box so that it was a bit prettier!

Next up was supposed to be amaretti biscuits. I have made amaretti biscuits before and my husband loves them, but I needed to take into consideration that my son has an allergy to tree nuts so we couldn't really put these into a dessert that he might eat at a family dinner. I therefore decided to just use shop bought ladyfinger biscuits. In the end, I could have used amaretti because he didn't even taste what I made! Oh well. It's not the first time he wouldn't try something I have made, and it won't be the last time. The idea is that you put a layer of amaretti in the trifle, but also crumble some over the top of the cream. I did crumble the ladyfingers as well.

I do have several egg whites left from my two attempts at custard, so I am thinking that I might make some amaretti later in the week, just for Robert and I.

Until I started looking at this recipe, I don't think I ever knew that you could buy tinned mandarin segments, but you can. And you can create a chunky coulis without too much effort.

The jewelled chocolate shards involve melting white chocolate and then sprinkling it with mixed peel. However, I couldn't find any mixed peel when I was at the shops today so I ended up deciding not make these at all. Instead I offered my guests some shop made mini meringues if they wanted to.

Whipped cream should have been the easiest part of this, but unfortunately because I had unsuccessfully made two lots of custard I didn't have as much cream left as I should have.

So what was the verdict? I served this up at a family dinner. As usual my bakes don't look as pretty as they should, but they do generally taste good! Most people enjoyed it and went for seconds, but my nephew wasn't super keen because he "hates" mandarins. Note to self, don't use mandarins in anything in future.

Weekly meals

Saturday - 

Sunday - 

Monday - 

Tuesday - Steak, egg and chips

Wednesday - Pork nachos

Thursday - Pork chop, mash, broccoli and mushroom sauce

Friday - Takeaway Friday

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