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 sandwiches and 20,000 slices of cake are eaten. It is believed the late Queen liked to alternate between plain scones and fruit scones and would always add jam first when dining on the plain variety. Elizabeth II preferred Earl Grey tea and besides scones is said to have enjoyed chocolate eclairs, fruit cake, banana bread, Victoria sponge cake and chocolate.
In a series of YouTube vidoes, Mr McGrady revealed the late Queen would eat four meals a day, but would only have small portions at breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. The former royal chef, who served as the late monarch's personal chef from 1982 to 1993, said Elizabeth II would never say if she didn't enjoy a meal, but would note down in a book if she didn't want a dish again. Elizabeth II also had a sweet tooth, with Mr McGrady describing the late Queen as a chocoholic in a 2016 interview with Hello! magazine.
He told the publication: "Anything we put on the menu that had chocolate on, she would choose, especially chocolate perfection pie." This is a chocolate flan which includes white chocolate, dark chocolate, cream, sugar and cinnamon..
