When TV royalty meets its real-life match, the results are bound to be pretty epic – and so it was as Mary Berry teamed up with Kate Middleton for a Christmas baking special on the BBC last night. 

The pair were joined by The Great British Bake Off champion Nadiya Hussain and Kate’s husband Prince William, as they toured UK charities and put festive recipes to the test in A Very Berry Christmas.

However, it was the chemistry between the show’s two protagonists that really caught people’s eye on Twitter. 

Viewers were elated at how down-to-earth the Duchess of Cambridge appeared to be, as she rolled her sleeves up and followed Berry’s lead in the fine-tuned art of Christmas baking.

In the grand old tradition of Bake Off – the show that Berry once fronted, back in its BBC days – the food writer couldn’t resist throwing a suggestive baking quip in Kate’s direction.

And happily for everyone involved, the duchess played along, giggling at Berry’s lewd double entendre. 

Unsurprisingly, there were soon calls for the Mary-Kate union to become a permanent fixture.

As many people pointed out, the one-hour special gave rise to a surprise new kind of TV dream team.

The programme then turned up a notch, and also got a little competitive, as the duke and duchess went head-to-head in a battle of festive roulades.

Hussain helped the duke get to grips with his rolling, while Berry gossiped with the duchess about her husband’s cooking prowess.

Apparently, William is very good at breakfast and he used to cook Kate bolognese back in their university days together. “I think that was when he was trying to impress me Mary,” Kate confided. 

Meanwhile, Hussain reassured William that “if anything accidentally falls into your mouth, that’s OK”.

Although wonderfully light-hearted, A Berry Royal Christmas also carries a more serious message.

Throughout the show, the royal couple accompany Mary in visits to some of the charities they support, including The Brink – the UK’s first dry bar set up by Action on Addiction in Liverpool – and The Passage, London’s largest resource centre for homeless and insecurely housed people.

The trio want to raise awareness of the volunteering work these charities and others undertake at a critical time of year for vulnerable communities.

Berry is no stranger to hardship herself. One of Britain’s most famous cooks lost her son, William, in a car crash when he was just 19 years old.  

“William’s death changed me,” she later revealed. “Little things simply do not bother me any more. You have to count your blessings instead, and my life has been immensely blessed.”

Watch A Berry Royal Christmas on BBC iPlayer now.

Images: BBC