The Jubilee Pudding: 70 Years in the Baking offers baking stars a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to celebrate the Queen’s platinum jubilee.
Five home bakers will mark the monarch’s 70 years on the throne by making their own cake, tart or pudding which they think would get the royal seal of approval.
The winning creation will go down in British history, and 5,000 people applied to take part, ranging from the ages of 10 up to 80.
Now whittled down to just a handful of finalists, they’ll compete on BBC tonight to bake a pudding fit for the Queen.
When does The Jubilee Pudding start?
The baking show airs tonight (Thursday, May 12) at 8pm on BBC One and will be available to stream on iPlayer.
Who are the finalists?
Contestants will face a panel of baking experts, hoping to impress.
The five finalists include Susan Gardner, 65, from Argyll and Bute, who is a retired sales manager and now works for the National Trust.
Sue will be making a ‘four nations pudding’ using Scottish berries, Yorkshire rhubarb, Welsh cakes and Irish butter and cream.
Next up we have mother-of-two Shabnam Russo, a skincare expert in her late 30s.
She’ll be dishing up a rose falooda cake to reflect the Queen’s love of the Commonwealth.
Her dessert also has a personal touch, since it’s based on her grandparents favourite pud.
The couple live in Mumbai, and enjoy the cold milk-based dessert, which was developed during the Mughal empire.
The third finalist is 31-year-old Jemma Melvin, a copyrigher from Southport in Merseyside.
Jemma’s bake is a classic swiss roll, which will be lemon flavoured and include amaretti trifle pudding.
Her pudding is inspired by the lemon posset at at the Queen’s wedding to Prince Phillip in 1947.
Kathryn MacLennan, 29, is the fourth finalist, and she’s a composer and oboist from Oxfordshire.
Her bake will be putting her own spin on a an explosion of flavour, as she serves up a passion fruit and thyme frangipane tart, taking inspiration from her late grandmother’s favourite cake.
Last but not least we have 32-year-old Sam Smith, a lawyer from Warickshire.
Sam will be putting her own spin on the much-loved Victoria sponge, adding a twist with the Queen’s favourite tipple dubonnet – a sweet, aromatic wine-based aperitif.
Who are the judges?
The Jubilee Pudding might be celebrating Queen Elizabeth, but would it be a baking show without the Queen of baking?
Of course, Mary Berry is on the panel, and she’s very excited to be a part of baking history.
Speaking on why she wanted to get involved with the show, she told BBC News: ‘I thought it sounded like a simply wonderful idea. Jubilees are very special, people are going to come together, have street parties and come together for the occasion as families and communities.
‘It’s a wonderful thought that perhaps this Jubilee pudding will be made for everyone celebrating whether at street parties, for family occasions, or even made for just two people. The Jubilee weekend will feel as though the country is united.’
Viewers will see her tasting each pudding in the Fortnum & Masons tea room, joined by fellow judges Monica Galetti, Rahul Mandal, Regula Ysewijn, Matt Adlard, Jane Dunn and Roger Pizey.
The Jubilee Pudding: 70 Years in the Baking airs tonight on BBC One and iPlayer.
