{"id":301263,"date":"2026-07-20T23:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T23:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/301263\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T23:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T23:41:08","slug":"how-queen-elizabeth-indulged-prince-williams-love-of-dessert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/301263\/","title":{"rendered":"How Queen Elizabeth Indulged Prince William’s Love of Dessert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Queen Elizabeth and Prince William had a special connection, and in many ways, they were just like a regular grandma and grandson<\/a>. But let\u2019s not kid ourselves: They were still royals, which means the idea of \u201cspoiling your grandkids\u201d was likely next-level. At least, that was definitely the case when it came to William\u2019s favorite dessert.<\/p>\n

According to the queen\u2019s ex-chef Darren McGrady, when the young prince wanted his preferred sweet treat, the queen had a magical way of indulging him. And let\u2019s just say we are totally getting into Willy Wonka territory here.<\/p>\n

So what did Prince William crave as a kid, and how did his doting grandmother fulfill those wishes? Read on to find out.<\/p>\n

Get\u00a0Reader\u2019s Digest\u2019s\u00a0Read Up newsletter<\/a> for more royals, humor, cleaning, travel, tech and fun facts all week long. <\/p>\n

How did Queen Elizabeth indulge Prince William\u2019s love of dessert?<\/p>\n

With the push of a button! Yes, it\u2019s the stuff of dreams for any child: You press a button and ice cream appears\u2014served by a gloved footman, no less! And that\u2019s exactly what happened, according to McGrady, who worked for the queen before transitioning to a job in Princess Diana\u2019s household.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I worked for the queen, Prince William loved dark chocolate and asked for chocolate ice cream<\/a>,\u201d McGrady told the U.K.\u2019s Heart Bingo. \u201cThe queen would press a button, the page would come, she\u2019d ask for the ice cream, and it triggered a long chain: head chef, pastry chef, silver pantry, glass pantry, linen room. Finally, 20 minutes later, William got his homemade ice cream presented to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope the long trot along the red-carpeted corridors didn\u2019t mean the ice cream melted by the time he got it!<\/p>\n

Did the queen join her grandson for ice cream?<\/p>\n

\"Britain'sADRIAN DENNIS\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know for sure, but we\u2019re guessing she did at least some of the time. After all, the late queen loved ice cream too\u2014so much so that she served it as part of her wedding reception in 1947. Guests tucked into Bombe Glac\u00e9e Princess Elizabeth, aka strawberry ice cream in a dome. McGrady said that the queen regularly included variations of this at her banquets, such as the coffee-flavored Bombe Glac\u00e9e Coppelia.<\/p>\n

Like William, the queen adored dark chocolate<\/a>, and that love wasn\u2019t limited to ice cream. Her former lady-in-waiting, Lady Pamela Hicks, revealed on the documentary My Years with the Queen that the monarch always had a box of chocolates with her, which she hid in her room so her \u201cgreedy\u201d family wouldn\u2019t eat them before she did!<\/p>\n

Her favorites were chocolates and pralines from upmarket chocolatier Charbonnel et Walker and chocolate mints from Bendicks. In fact, she enjoyed these treats so much that she awarded both brands royal warrants, meaning they were legally allowed to display the royal coat of arms on their offerings.<\/p>\n

Was Diana stricter with William\u2019s dessert intake?<\/p>\n

Nope. Diana ran an even more casual kitchen environment at Kensington Palace, McGrady revealed. There was no magic ice cream button there\u2014it was more a case of opening the freezer yourself. \u201cAt Kensington, it was much more relaxed,\u201d he said. \u201cWilliam would walk into the kitchen and say, \u2018Darren, can I have some chocolate ice cream, please?\u2019 I\u2019d say, \u2018Help yourself.’\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the chef, William would \u201cgrab H\u00e4agen-Dazs chocolate chip\u2014that was his favorite\u2014open it, and sit in the windowsill eating it.\u201d He added that Diana also liked to hang out in the kitchen, have a snack<\/a> and catch up.<\/p>\n

Does William still have a sweet tooth?<\/p>\n

\"PrinceWPA Pool\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

He sure does. To this day, he\u2019s still a chocolate ice cream fan. He and Kate are often snapped enjoying ice cream, such as when the duo visited an ice cream parlor in Swansea, Wales, in 2020. \u201cI am a chocolate man,\u201d he told the owners of Joe\u2019s Ice Cream Parlor.<\/p>\n

Likewise, during William and Kate\u2019s Caribbean tour in 2022, they visited a chocolate farm in Belize. While there, William jokingly asked if he could get a job as an apprentice, saying, \u201cIt\u2019s my kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

How else did Elizabeth and William bond?<\/p>\n

When William was attending school at nearby Eton College\u2014where he\u2019s just enrolled Prince George\u2014he would spend Sundays having tea with his grandmother<\/a> at Windsor Castle. The prince revealed just how much those afternoons meant to him in a recent video tribute, saying, \u201cI remember many a quiet afternoon, having tea with her and my grandfather at the castle, chatting, sharing stories and seeing how completely at ease she was here, surrounded by family and her much-loved dogs and horses. To this day, she\u2019s given me a love of teatime that I never knew I needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

William also paid a special tribute to her with his and Kate\u2019s choice of cake at their 2011 wedding<\/a>. As well as a traditional fruit cake, William had a second cake\u2014a chocolate biscuit cake, something the queen adored. McGrady told Today Food that the cake was \u201cher favorite cake\u201d and that if anything was left when she had it at Buckingham Palace, it then went \u201cto Windsor Castle so she [could] finish it there. I used to travel on the train from London to Windsor Castle with the biscuit cake in a tin on my knee. It was half-eaten.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

Marie Claire<\/a>: \u201cPrincess Diana\u2019s Former Chef Shares How Queen Elizabeth Would Indulge Prince William with One Treat by \u2018Pressing a Button\u2019\u201d
\nRoyal.uk<\/a>: \u201c70 Facts about the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh\u2019s wedding\u201d
\nMy Years with the Queen<\/a>
\nThe Standard<\/a>: \u201cKate Middleton and Prince William tuck into ice-cream scoops during Swansea visit\u201d
\nBBC<\/a>: \u201cWilliam and Kate dance and taste chocolate during day two of Belize tour\u201d
\nThe Royal Chef<\/a>: \u201cQueen Elizabeth\u2019s Favorite Cake: Chocolate Biscuit Cake\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queen Elizabeth and Prince William had a special connection, and in many ways, they were just like a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,13256,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-301263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-not-set","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}