Royal appointment: Charity recipe book includes cake fit for a queen

Published on Friday 28 May 2010 23:37

IT WAS long-held secret in the kitchens of the royal household, but now we can all eat cake fit for a queen.

• Agnes Monaghan has also collected recipes from friends, family and Cumnock expats for her book, aiming to raise funds for her parish church. Picture: Robert Perry

Prince Charles has submitted the recipe for the late Queen Mother's favourite bakery item to a new cookbook raising funds for a Scottish parish church.

The Prince of Wales decided to disclose the gingerbread recipe after he was contacted by Agnes Monaghan, from Cumnock, Ayrshire.

The cake, he revealed, was best enjoyed by his grandmother – who died in 2002 aged 101 – when "spread with butter after a day at the races".

Now that her book has the royal seal of approval, Mrs Monaghan, 70, is preparing herself for orders from around the world.

She was compiling ideas for the book, Milk and Two Sugars, devised in memory of her late husband Hugh, when she struck upon the idea of contacting Prince Charles, given his involvement in saving the nearby Dumfries House.

One friend passed on a cookbook containing the recipe for a date and walnut Sodbury that has been dubbed "The Queen Mother's Cake" in many books and websites.

Encouraged, Mrs Monaghan wrote to Clarence House asking for permission to include the details in her book, a mixture of recipes and social history.

"I thought I might not hear anything back," she recalled. "But a few weeks later, I received a lovely letter."

The correspondence rebuffed the notion that the Sodbury was the Queen Mother's favourite and made it clear the prince would be "delighted" to impart the secrets of the gingerbread.

Mrs Monaghan, a grandmother of four, said: "It was a very nice personal touch, the way he revealed how his grandmother enjoyed a slice of gingerbread. I can imagine her enjoying it even more if she had backed a winner the same day."

Mrs Monaghan hopes to bake a loaf soon for her fellow parishioners at Cumnock's St John the Evangelist Church to sample.

"It's quite an unusual recipe for gingerbread," she said. "It's certainly very rich, given the ingredients, but it will be interesting to see what it tastes like."

Among the other recipes in Milk and Two Sugars is one for Macfool Bil Croombe donated by Johnny Dumfries, the former racing driver and 7th Marquess of Bute.

The former owner of Dumfries House, whose ancestor helped to finance the building of the Cumnock church in 1882, delved deep into his family archives for the exotic dish.

Mrs Monaghan said: "It's an ancient-looking recipe that the 4th Marquess picked up from Morocco. There's three cabbages, three-quarters of a pint of olive oil and a kilo of beef with the bones and fat included. It's quite something."

The recipes sit alongside recipes donated by friends and family of Mrs Monaghan, as well as people from as far afield as Australia, the United States, Canada and Spain with links to Cumnock.

Mrs Monaghan has already taken 250 orders and is optimistic the initial print run of 1,000 will sell out.

Father Stephen McGrattan, the parish priest at St John's, said: "It is more than a recipe book, it is something which will hopefully spark a lot of memories for people."

RECIPE FOR QUEEN MOTHER'S GINGERBREAD

(MAKES ONE LARGE LOAF)

INGREDIENTS

225 grams of self-raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tbsp ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice

110g unsalted butter, chilled and diced

110g black treacle

110g golden syrup

110g dark muscavado sugar

280g milk

1 large free range egg

METHOD

1 Grease and line a 900g loaf tin, and pre-heat oven to 175C gas mark four

2 Mix flour with bicarbonate of soda and spices

3 Rub in butter with fingertips and until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs

4 Melt treacle, syrup, sugar, and milk over low heat, stirring frequently

5 Whisk into mixture, adding egg, and continue to whisk until a smooth batter forms

6 Pour into tin and bake for 45 to 60 minutes

7 Place loaf on wire cooling rack

8 Wrap in greaseproof paper, and for best results, leave a couple of days

9 Slice and spread with butter. Horse racing optional