A new dessert created for the next week's Jubilee Picnic in the gardens of Buckingham Palace has whipped up a culinary frenzy across the nation.
Just three days after Waitrose unveiled the recipe for Diamond Jubilee Strawberry Crumble Crunch in its shops, customers have been clamouring to recreate the dish in their own homes.
The Crumble Crunch, created by Waitrose with Heston Blumenthal and Royal Chef Mark Flanagan will be one of the centre pieces in picnics to be given out to 10,000 people selected by public ballot to attend the garden party and watch the Diamond Jubilee concert.
The indulgent pudding - which coincides with the start of the British Strawberry season - includes a compote made from British strawberries, rose water and elderflower cordial, topped with a marble cream and crumble topping.
The patriotic dessert has inspired shoppers to snap up the key ingredients, which are flying off the shelves.
Waitrose has quadrupled its normal weekly supply of whipping cream and tripled its normal order of golden caster sugar to meet demand.
Sales of Elderflower cordial have been soaring by an incredible 1,000 per cent, while rosewater - which gives the dessert a distinctive fragrant quality - has been selling at 52 times its normal rate. Meringue shells, which form the pudding's topping, are selling at 20 times the levels the supermarket would normally expect.
Graham Cassie, Waitrose's Brand Manager, who will have the job of masterminding the assembly and delivery of 10,000 hampers on Monday June 4th, said:
"The demand for ingredients has been astonishing with customers desperate to recreate this dessert for their friends and family.
"It's lovely to think that, at exactly the same time as those attending the Buckingham Palace garden party are tucking into their picnics, there will be countless others around Britain enjoying this new dessert."
Heston Blumenthal said: "I have designed this indulgent pudding especially for The Queen's Jubilee weekend, which coincides with the beginning of the British strawberry season. It makes me proud to be British!"
The recipe card for Diamond Jubilee Strawberry Crumble Crunch is available in all Waitrose branches and online at http://www.waitrose.com [www.waitrose.com ]