A former royal chef has revealed the secret ingredient he put into Prince William and Prince Harry‘s chocolate brownies when they were children.
According to the former chef, if the princes’ nanny ever found out he would have been in ‘real trouble’, because it would ‘supercharge’ the boys.
In a video shared to his YouTube channel, ex royal cook Darren McGrady, born in Nottinghamshire, said he would make brownies using ‘a shot of espresso coffee.’
McGrady explained adding coffee to the cake mix gave them a lot of ‘depth and richness’, saying ‘it really intensifies the flavour.’
He then shared a sweet memory about how the boys, who are sadly now believed to no longer be on speaking terms, would play together when they were younger.
‘It supercharges with energy, you know with that caffeine and all that sugar, it supercharges the chocolate in the brownies but that was the problem, because it also used to supercharge William and Harry,’ Darren recalled.
‘For the rest of the afternoon they were running around like this at Kensington Palace and Nanny would go ballistic.’
It appears not much has changed in the decades since Darren cooked for the young boys – as Kate and William joked about his love for the chocolate treat earlier this week.
A former royal chef has revealed the secret ingredient he put into Prince William and Prince Harry’s chocolate brownies when they were children (pictured in 1990)
During a visit to the WI in Ascot, William declared ‘I know my brownies’, but said that he would never ‘add nuts’ to them.
Kate joked: ‘William is very fussy about it. I learned the hard way!’
Darren explained the most popular addition to brownies all around the world is walnuts but because William and Harry didn’t like them, he would add extra chocolate chips instead.
The chef explained that the best way to make the princes’ favourite brownies is to start by adding butter and chocolate chips to a large bowl and melting them.
He said: ‘I use unsalted butter in the mix because we can control how much salt then, we put in a tiny pinch of salt.’
He then added sugar, vanilla extract and eggs into the mix before whisking it all up.
McGrady later added flour and his ‘secret ingredient’, the shot of espresso coffee, before pouring the mixture into a grease proof tray.
He said: ‘Then it is going into the oven, 350° for about 12 to 15 minutes but notice on the brownies you see that beautiful shine on there, when it goes into the oven it has a beautiful shine but when it comes out we want it a real dull matte colour and that helps to tell us that it’s cooked.
In a video shared to his YouTube channel, ex royal cook Darren McGrady, born in Nottinghamshire, said he would make brownies using ‘a shot of espresso coffee’
The royal chef also shared tips on how to adjust the brownie recipe depending on the texture you prefer.
‘Although there’s many different additions into the brownies, there’s also different textures too.
‘So if you want more of a fudge brownie like this recipe then you don’t add baking soda or baking powder, if you want more of a cake brownie then that’s a little more flour and some baking powder or baking soda in there.
‘If you want the chewy brownies then you add more eggs to the recipe.’
It comes after McGrady revealed the ‘unfussy’ dishes that Princess Diana would request for her sons William and Harry during their childhood.
According to her former chef, the late mother of Prince William and Prince Harry opted for ‘nursery foods’ and ‘comfort foods’ for her young sons and their favourite meal was one most British families can relate to.
In another video shared to his YouTube channel, McGrady said the simple hearty meal Diana, who sadly passed away in 1997, requested for the boys was one of their favourite dishes – Spaghetti Bolognese.
McGrady said that although ‘they were royal princes, they still had children’s palettes’ so ‘Spaggy Bol’ was always a hit with the boys.
The royal chef also shared tips on how to adjust the brownie recipe depending on the texture you prefer
Food consultant and former MasterChef contestant, Renae Smith, told Hello that Diana’s favoured dishes for herself and her children reflected her ‘unfussy, considered approach to food’.
Darren explained that he would make the dish in the traditional way, adding onion, celery, carrot, beef bouillon cubes and ground beef.
He served the sauce with either spaghetti or rice, and shared a helpful tip for thickening the sauce: adding a small amount of flour.
‘When she [Diana] was entertaining, especially if she had the boys home, William and Harry, I had to change the menu to make it nursery friendly so that the boys would like it – comfort food that they would like, but a dish to two that she would like too,’ McGrady revealed.
The chef revealed that he watched the boys grow up over the 11 years he worked at Kensington Palace, even seeing them play hide and seek in the kitchen over the years.
He said: ‘I used to puree vegetables for them as babies and hold Harry as a baby in the kitchen at Windsor castle as they got older making all their favourite nursery foods and comfort foods.
‘They used to play hide and seek, Harry would hide in a cabinet and William would come in hunting for him, ”Have you seen Harry, have you seen Harry”, and sometimes they would help cook…that never went too well.’
While the princes enjoyed their favourite meal a lot in the palace, Diana used to opt for something a little more sophisticated.
The chef revealed that he cooked sole florentine for Diana, however he revealed the Princess once changed the menu completely when a friend joined her for lunch, opting for Darren’s tomato mousse followed by lobster thermidor with a pear flan for dessert.
Reminiscing about his time in the palace with Prince William and Prince Harry as children, McGrady said: ‘One time at Christmas the boys had been given pump action water guns, they came running into the kitchen firing them and everybody got soaked, we weren’t prepared.
‘We decided we were going to get them back, a few days later we went into nearby King’s Lynn and found some pump action water guns and raced back to the palace.
‘But walking across the lawn a policeman saw us, he said ”What are you doing? Take those guns back to your room” and my friend Arthur said ”Oh we’re going to shoot William and Harry”.
‘So we never did get to shoot William and Harry with the water guns but I always kept in the kitchen, just in case they came in, a little container squeeze bottle with some water in, so if they came in and attacked me again with water guns I was ready.’
