By Danny Gutmann

Copyright manchestereveningnews

Great British Bake Off star Dame Prue Leith has revealed how the late Queen Elizabeth got her own back after she made an embarrassing mistake while meeting the monarch decades earlier. While she has gone on to become one of the biggest names on British TV over the years, Dame Prue recently looked back on her younger days when she had the rare opportunity to meet Queen Elizabeth. During a recent episode of the Making A Scene podcast, Dame Prue shared how her challenge of having to provide a cup of tea for the Queen went wrong during a somewhat embarrassing event over 50 years ago. Recalling the mishap, Dame Prue told podcast co-hosts Matt Lucas and David Walliams that she had tried to pull out all the stops to make sure the Queen had her tea exactly how she desired. However, despite calling the Palace ahead of the event to find out exactly how the Queen liked her tea, she was instead told to prepare a tray of options — including lemon tea, Earl Grey, and others — for her to choose from. When the moment arrived to meet the monarch, she recalled making a series of blunders, including adding a slice of lemon to her black tea and making it too weak by adding too much water, saying: “She said, as it filled, ‘I like it strong.’ So the poor woman — she wanted a strong tea, and she got a lemony, weak tea.” But despite decades having passed, Dame Prue said the Queen eventually got her own back, joking: “Well, she got her revenge, because it took her 50 years to give me a damehood.” Dame Prue was made an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 1989 and then a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 2010. However, she received the highest royal honour possible in 2021 when she was given a damehood for her services to food, broadcasting, and charity. Sharing her delight on X (formerly known as Twitter ) at the time, she wrote: “I’m not sure I deserve such a pat on the back for doing things that I’ve loved all my long life — in business or cooking or campaigning.” More recently, the 85-year-old has reprised her iconic partnership alongside Paul Hollywood in co-judging contestants’ efforts on The Great British Bake Off. Earlier this week, viewers saw the amateur bakers take on pastry week in a bid to move one step closer to winning the beloved Channel 4 baking show.