A cake fit for a Queen

Nadiya Hussain looks back on the showstopper she baked for the Queen’s 90th birthday and shares a new recipe for the Platinum Jubilee

- By Nadiya Hussain

NADIYA'S JUBILEE CELEBRATION

My strawberry lemonade cake (p24) is fun, simple and fruity – ideal for a party. It’s full of fresh flavours – I think we grow some of the most delicious strawberries, so the cake is about celebrating British produce, too. I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed creating it with Good Food’s food director, Cassie.

This isn’t the first time I’ve made a cake to celebrate the Queen. In 2016, not long after I won the sixth series of The Great British Bake Off, I was contacted by email to see if I would bake a cake for Her Majesty’s 90th birthday. At first, I thought it was a hoax, but it was like a fairy tale. Seeing the Queen in person and baking for her was bizarre to me.

I thought the process of creating the Queen's birthday cake would come with lots of guidelines, but I was given only one rule: don't make a fruitcake, as they can be tough to cut through. I finally settled on a triple-tiered orange drizzle marmalade cake; a spin on my lemon drizzle cake with lemon curd. It was fresh and zesty with a nod to a classic Victoria sponge.

At times, I found making the cake overwhelming. It was such a special occasion that I hesitated over many aspects, from ideas and flavours, to baking and decorating. In the end, it took me four days.