Queen Elizabeth's death brings to an end the longest reign in the history of the United Kingdom. (Source: Reuters)Did you know that Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away on Thursday at 96, preferred a simple and structured diet for her daily life? In his 2020 book, Long Live the Queen! 13 Rules for Living from Britain’s Longest Reigning Monarch, royal author Bryan Kozlowski noted that “straightforward” and “simplicity” marked Queen‘s dining habits since childhood. However, there’s one food item that she ate consistently throughout her life – scones with afternoon tea, along with her favourite jam sandwiches.
Darren McGrady, who was a chef to the queen for 11 years, had earlier revealed that she liked to top the scones with jam, made with strawberries picked from the garden at Balmoral Castle, followed by clotted cream. “The queen was always jam first,” he said. “The jam went on followed by that delicious, clotted cream.”
As such, when former US President Dwight Eisenhower paid a visit to The Queen at Balmoral Castle in 1959, the duo bonded over scones, according to a letter written by her to the president. She communicated that she had forgotten to share the recipe for her classic scones that she had promised at Balmoral during their meeting.
Queen Elizabeth promised to send President Eisenhower her scones recipe after receiving him in 1959 at Balmoral Castle, where she died today: pic.twitter.com/9JfZCXXMiH
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) September 8, 2022
“Seeing a picture of you in today’s newspaper standing in front of a barbecue grilling quail, reminded me that I had never sent you the recipe of the drop scones which I promised you at Balmoral. I now hasten to do so, and I do hope you will find them successful,” she wrote.
Queen Elizabeth added that the quantities mentioned in the recipe are for 16 people and she reduces the quantity of the flour and milk when there are fewer people. “I have also tried using golden syrup or treacle instead of sugar and that can be very good, too,” she wrote.
She added: “I think the mixture needs a great deal of beating while making and shouldn’t stand about too long before cooling.”
In case you are planning to prepare these scones, here’s the recipe shared by Queen Elizabeth II.
Queen’s scones recipe, sent by her to Eisenhower: pic.twitter.com/djMQOaaunH
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) September 8, 2022
Ingredients
4 tea cups of flour
4 tablespoons of castor sugar
2 tea cups of milk
2 whole eggs
2 teaspoons bicarbonate soda
3 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 tablespoons of melted butter
Method
*Beat eggs, sugar and about half the milk together.
*Add flour and mix well together adding the remainder of the milk as required followed by bicarbonate soda and cream of tartar. Fold in the melted butter.
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