How to cook scones using your AGA & Queen Elizabeth’s Favourite Chocolate Biscuit Cake!

It’s almost time to celebrate Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee!

To continue our celebration, this week I’ll be showing you how to bake the most delicious, light and fluffy scones in the AGA. Plus we’re back with The Royal Chef Darren McGrady, for another of the Queen’s favourites - a decadently rich chocolate biscuit cake filled with an English staple - Digestive Biscuits!

“This chocolate biscuit cake is Her Royal Majesty the Queen’s favourite afternoon tea cake by far,” chef Darren McGrady, The Royal Chef and former personal chef to Queen Elizabeth II, told TODAY Food. “This cake is probably the only one that is sent into the royal dining room again and again until it has all gone.”

“It is her favourite cake that she eats until it is all gone,” says McGrady. “If there is anything left when she has it at Buckingham Palace, it then goes to Windsor Castle so she can finish it there. I use to travel on the train from London to Windsor Castle with the biscuit cake in a tin on my knee. It was half-eaten.”

- Posted on www.today.com (Read original article here.)

Queen Elizabeth’s Favorite Cake: Chocolate Biscuit Cake

Ingredients:

Cake:

1/2 teaspoon butter, for greasing the pan

8 ounces Rich tea biscuits or sweet cookies - I use Digestive Biscuits

4 ounces unsalted butter, softened

4 ounces granulated sugar

4 ounces dark chocolate

1 egg

Icing:

8 ounces dark chocolate, for coating

1 ounce chocolate, for decoration

Method:

Lightly grease a 6-inch-by-2½-inch cake ring with the butter and place it on a tray on a sheet of parchment paper.

Break each of the biscuits into almond size pieces by hand and set them aside.

In a large bowl, combine the butter and sugar until the mixture starts to lighten.

Melt the 4 ounces of the dark chocolate and add to the butter mixture, stirring constantly.

Add the egg and beat to combine.

Fold in the biscuit pieces until they are all coated with the chocolate mixture.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake ring. Try to fill all of the gaps on the bottom of the ring because this will be the top when it is un-moulded.

Chill the cake in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.

Remove the cake from the refrigerator and let it stand.

Meanwhile, melt the 8 ounces of dark chocolate in a double boiler or saucepan on the stovetop over low heat. Slide the ring off the cake and turn it upside down onto a cake wire.

Pour the melted chocolate over the cake and smooth the top and sides using a palette knife.

Allow the chocolate to set at room temperature.

Carefully run a knife around the bottom of the cake where the chocolate has stuck it to the cake wire and lift it onto a tea plate.

Melt the remaining 1 ounce of chocolate and use it to decorate the top of the cake.

Courtesy of Chef Darren McGrady, The Royal Chef.

Scones

Baked in the AGA

Ingredients:

85g butter cold and cut into small cubes

3 tablespoons caster sugar

350g self-raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon of table salt

175ml room temperature milk

A squeeze of lemon juice

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 egg beaten to glaze

Method:

Place your cold butter into a bowl and add your flour, table salt, and baking powder.

Using your fingertips gently rub the mixture until you have fine breadcrumbs.

Place 175ml of milk in a jug and warm gently on your AGA to room temperature.

Add the caster sugar into your breadcrumb mixture and mix it through.

Add the lemon and vanilla to your milk.

Make a well in the centre and pour in the milk mixture.

Using a knife stir until it comes together. Once it's come together, get your hands involved. It will be quite wet, so add a little flour to bring together into a ball.

Generously flour your work surface and fold the dough over a few times until its smooth. Be careful not to overwork the dough.

Shape into a round approx. 4 cm deep using a fluted cookie cutter. Cut out as many rounds as you can and place on a lined baking tray, reshape the dough and cut out more.

Let them rest beside the AGA for about 15-20 minutes.

Brush the top with the egg wash and bake in the middle of the roasting oven for 10 mins until golden. Use the plain cold sheet for the first 7 minutes.

Hosting a traditional afternoon tea this weekend? If so, treat yourself to 20% off my Afternoon Tea digital recipes by using the code ACJUBILEE at checkout!

From all of us here at the Gray household, have a fantastic long weekend filled with celebration, fun, love and laughter.

Love, Charlie x