- Hi.
Hi.
- He just jumps and jumps at him.
- (Inaudible)
- Hi
- (Inaudible)
- (Inaudible) silly boy.
I'm Carolyn Robb, the Royal Chef.
Former chef to Prince Charles, Princess Diana,
Prince William and Prince Harry.
I'm making my lemon and thyme cake,
a great favorite at Highgrove
because of Prince Charles' love of fresh herbs.
(classical music)
The first time I met Prince Charles was at Highgrove.
I had cooked a meal for him and for Princess Diana
the previous evening.
I was very excited about meeting him,
but also slightly nervous
not knowing whether he would've liked
the meal I had cooked or not.
But when I did finally meet him
he was very warm, very gracious and very enthusiastic
about the food that I had cooked for him.
My first experience of Highgrove, happily, was successful.
I am to preheat the oven to 160 degrees centigrade,
ready to bake once the batter's made.
As with any cake, you have wet ingredients
and dry ingredients.
This one is really simple.
I'm going to start by blending together
the oil, the yogurt, and the egg.
And then I add in the sugar,
some freshly graded lemon zest and vanilla essence.
And then lastly, fold in the flower.
If you don't know what Highgrove is, let me tell you.
It is Prince Charles' private residence.
It's a beautiful home in the Cotswolds
that he purchased just before he
and Princess Diana were married.
Surrounding the house is the most beautiful gardens.
When he moved in, some 30-something years ago,
the gardens were very basic.
There was not very much there at all.
But he's worked tirelessly, both himself
and with numerous different gardeners,
to create the most incredibly beautiful garden.
In fact, Prince Charles loved the garden so much
that in the middle of the summer, when it doesn't get dark
until 10:00 - 10:30, dinner would be served very late
because he'd be out working in the garden until it got dark.
Now I'm ready to bake my lemon thyme cake.
And I'm going to do them in little individual ring molds.
And in order to get the mixture
without making too much mess,
I use a pastry bag with a plain nozzle.
Going to pipe this in,
the trick is not to fill them too high.
A very simple ring of mixture in each one.
(classical music)
Now I'm going to cook these in a preheated oven
at 160 degrees centigrade for 10 to 12 minutes.
Now I'm going to make a lemon thyme syrup,
which is really simple.
It's lots of fresh lemon juice, granulated sugar
and obviously some fresh thyme.
The reason I'm using fresh thyme is it really takes me back
to when I worked at Highgrove.
And there's the most incredible thyme path in the garden,
which is many meters long, and much of it was planted
by Prince Charles himself down on his hands and knees.
So many different wonderful varieties of thyme,
lemon thyme and apple thyme and...
But I think the most amazing thing
about the thyme path was when you walked
on it the incredible aroma that you got.
This syrup is really simple to make
just like any lemon drizzle cake syrup,
except this has the addition of thyme.
Once the sugar's all dissolved
and the syrup has simmered for just a moment
and I've put the thyme in,
we just turn it off and leave it to infuse
for about 10 minutes.
So that the flavor of the thyme really goes into the syrup.
These have had about 10 minutes now.
So I think they're probably ready.
I'm just going to loosen these
before turning them out onto a rack
and then we'll glaze them with the lemon thyme syrup.
Prince Charles is incredibly busy.
He has about 400 patronages
and charities that he works with.
And quite a few of those are related to the environment.
And there are a few in particular
that are really interesting
that relate to rare varieties
of seeds for fruit and vegetables.
And in the World Garden at Highgrove
there were the most beautiful vegetables.
Some of them were these rare variety vegetables.
Things like purple carrots, and yellow carrots,
and blue new potatoes, and blue beans.
It really was a rare privilege to cook
with so many amazing ingredients.
Using a pastry brush, I'm going to glaze these little cakes
with the lemon thyme syrup.
Now that I've glazed these,
I'm going to fill the centers
with a little mascarpone,
and then on top a selection of fresh berries.
Using fresh berries always takes me back
to my time at Highgrove
and particularly the wonderful gardener called Dennis,
who used to pick huge baskets full of berries
and bring them into the kitchen.
And he always presented everything so beautifully.
It was almost like a still life.
(classical music)
These little lemon thyme cakes
are perfect to serve for afternoon tea.
And it's exactly the kind
of thing that Prince Charles would serve
to guests at Highgrove when they came to visit him.
(classical music)
These little cakes are very light
because they don't have butter in them,
but they're made with oil instead.
It means that the texture is really light
and the combination of Greek yogurt
with lots of lemon zest and then the lemon thyme syrup
over the top means that they're not too sweet.
So if you don't have a sweet tooth
this is the perfect cake for you.
There are plenty more afternoon tea treats
just like these in my new book Tea at the Palace.
And for lots more dessert ideas go to delish.com.