Sticky toffee pudding recipe drama
A Lake District hotel is asking guests and kitchen staff to sign a secrecy clause to protect its recipe for sticky toffee pudding.
It comes after a couple tried to get the recipe at the Michelin-starred Sharrow Bay Hotel on the banks of Ullswater and post it on YouTube.
The hotel is where the famous pudding is believed to have been invented 40 years ago, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Locked in a vault on the premises, the recipe has been kept a closely-guarded secret ever since with only a handful of people taught how to make the dish.
A couple, however, nearly exposed it after sneaking a camera in to a masterclass on how to make the pudding and posting the footage on YouTube.
It was only the quick thinking of a manager who spotted the device that prevented the entire recipe being filmed and made available worldwide.
The moment he discovered the camera can be seen clearly on the video, subtitled 'Kitchenspy's Mission One', which has been watched more than 1,000 times.
A spokesman for the four-star hotel said: "There is a tremendous amount of interest among our guests and in the industry about the precise ingredients of our Sticky Toffee Pudding and the recipe is as important to us as the Coca-Cola formula is to its makers.
"In gourmet terms, getting hold of it is something of a culinary holy grail. We will do everything we can to safeguard it."
He added that staff know the couple responsible and will be contacting them and YouTube now that the video has been posted online.
Nova
