Express. Campfire Kate Middleton braves the chill

Plunging her hand into the dough, she appeared unconcerned that it was covering her jewellery, including her Welsh gold wedding ring and the diamond and sapphire ring which belonged to Princess Diana.

And Kate won praise for the quality of her bread as she braved the snow at a Lake District scout camp. “Oh, that’s brilliant,” said one who tasted it.

The Duchess then told her fellow volunteers: “You are more than welcome to try mine.” When they didn’t take her up on the offer, she tried the unleavened bread herself.

“Oh, it’s actually not bad, if you were desperately hungry. It’s quite sugary,” she said, laughing.

Kate, an occasional volunteer with her local Cub Scout pack in Anglesey, north Wales, was visiting the Great Tower Scout Activity Centre near Windermere.

Becky Coates, 38, a volunteer from Kendal, Cumbria, said the Duchess was an enthusiastic companion, especially when she plunged her hand into the dough without removing her rings. “She was straight in there, no stopping,” Becky added.

The adults were learning how to teach cubs to cook, light fires and climb trees using a rope harness. Kate wrapped up in warm clothes, including a Really Wild tweed cap and Le Chameau wellies during her two hours at the 250-acre camp.

Fatima Vukhari, nine, from Manchester, gave five-months-pregnant Kate a teddy for the baby. “We didn’t get a blue or pink one because it might be a girl or a boy. So we got her a brown one,” she said.

The Duchess, 31, had travelled to Cumbria by train, sharing a first-class carriage with other passengers on the two-and-a-half hour journey from London.