Duchess of Sussex makes banana bread for Australian farmers

Meghan, 37, baked the chocolate chip and ginger banana bread in Admiralty House before travelling to the drought-stricken town of Dubbo. Photo / Getty Images

It was over roast chicken that she was proposed to, and with a lemon and elderflower cake that she celebrated her marriage, but Meghan Markle's fondness for good food was confirmed again this week when she whipped up a banana bread for her visit to a farm in Dubbo, Australia.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are on a tour of Australia and it was after a day spent shaking hands and smiling for photographs in Sydney that Meghan, 37 – who is expecting her first child next autumn – baked the chocolate chip and ginger banana bread in Admiralty House before travelling to the drought-stricken town the next morning. She presented the loaf while meeting farmers who have been hit badly by the lack of rain.

• Get the best banana bread recipes on bite.co.nz

Having handed over the bake to the Woodleys, a fifth-generation farming family on Mountain View Farm, it would appear the banana bread was a hit; it is reported that as the Duchess left, the cake was already three-quarters gone.

Meghan is pregnant, she has 76 engagements in 16 days and she still has time to bake this banana bread. Wow ✨ pic.twitter.com/N6nLspAPJP

— Alice (@_alicestew) October 17, 2018

"It was such a nice and thoughtful thing for her to do. We are really touched," said Benita Woodley, who declared the cake delicious. Whether it would have been good enough for a handshake from Paul Hollywood, we'll never know...

Abiding by the British rule that one cannot eat cake without a cup of tea, the Duchess of Sussex also brought along with her a tin of Fortnum & Mason's 'Royal Blend' tea to give to the family, before being shown around the farm to see the damaging effects of the drought.

This isn't the first time the Duchess has hinted at her culinary prowess. Her now defunct blog, The Tig, boasted recipes for chocolate petit gateaux and 'life changing bread', and it was recently revealed that she had been secretly visiting the Hubb Community Kitchen in London, where women affected or displaced by the Grenfell Tower fire cook for each other. After lending a hand with rice making and washing up, she wrote the forward for their cookbook, Together.

Before she became a Royal, the former actress was asked by Delish website to name her favourite thing to cook. It had to be zucchini (courgette), she responded, slow-cooked for four to five hours until "the sauce gets so creamy you'd swear there's tons of butter and oil in it". With her recent cake choice, she stars a favourite ingredient of Prince Harry's, whose fondness for bananas led to much speculation that it would feature in their fruit-and-flowers wedding cake earlier this year.

The Duke and Duchess are scheduled to attend a total of 76 different events around Australia and will arrive in Wellington to visit Abel Tasman National Park, Auckland and Rotorua between October 28 and November 1.