Queen Elizabeth II insisted on being served a well-known treat every day despite it being an indulgent luxury for many Brits. According to the late Queen's former chef Darren McGrady Her Late Majesty would enjoy an afternoon tea of scones, jam and clotted cream wherever she went. He revealed in his book Eating Royally: Recipes and Remembrances from a Palace Kitchen that Elizabeth II would "always have afternoon tea wherever she was in the world".
Mr McGrady said: "We’d flown out to Australia and were on the Royal Yacht. It was five o’clock in the morning but for the Queen it was five in the afternoon so my first job was making scones." A British tradition dating back hundreds of years, afternoon tea usually includes finger sandwiches, cakes, pastries and scones with jam and cream.
Afternoon tea is often served on fine china between the hours of 3pm and 5pm, but is reserved by many Brits as a treat for special occasions. One of the late Queen's last appearances on TV was when Her Late Majesty shared afternoon tea with a hapless Paddington Bear in a sketch aired at the Platinum Jubilee concert in which the monarch pulled a marmalade sandwich from her handbag. During the Covid pandemic the Royal Family shared the Palace's recipe for fruit scones, which would regularly be served at Buckingham Palace garden parties.
The recipe was posted on the Royal Family Instagram page which said every year at garden parties across the royal residences more than 27,000 cups of tea, 20,000 s.