Cake and more cake!


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Cake for the next 3 days - I am at a coffee and cake do organised by my Pilates teacher tomorrow. Saturday I am running a composting workshop (with cake provided) and Sunday I am helping on a Christmas stall for Loughborough in Bloom selling guess what? CAKE. I do love cake but my thighs will be like two Swiss rolls at the end of it. Might have to ration myself.

Mrs B

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Beekay, me too. My favourite has to be coffee and walnut though.

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Well, I got on the scales this morning and have lost 2lbs this week. The cake diet is clearly the way forward!

Mrs B

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1 hour ago, MRS B said:

Well, I got on the scales this morning and have lost 2lbs this week. The cake diet is clearly the way forward!

Mrs B

The cake diet sounds perfect to me MRS B and coffee and walnut is also my favourite cake too, although I do also like a nice victoria sponge as long as there is plenty of jam and buttercream in it.

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Well I had a piece of both of those yesterday. Had apple cake today and made raspberry and white chocolate traybake for the Christmas stall tomorrow. Perhaps keep off the cake next week and go on to mince pie trialling!

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Beekay you always make me laugh. It’s not Mrs Beaton no but I do have a “Good Housekeeping” recipe book that was first published in 1948 and was specifically left to me in someone’s will  along with a cake stand. The version I have was a revised edition printed in 1972, actually printed and bound in Italy (one for you nonna). The preface says it is for “newly Weds to experienced hostess” Don’t think I meet either of those descriptions but the book is always a go to for old and tried recipes.

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Morning MrsB., on the subject of recipe books, 'er indoors has still got a recipe book of her Mother's that was with her when she was a cook in the RAF during the war. Trouble was, she catered for over 400 souls. For example, one recipe was for chocolate sponge and started with..."Take 48 eggs"! etc. Soups were made by gallons rather than mils. We tried to choose a subject then divide it by 400. Needless to say we gave up. Thank heaven for Pot Noodles.

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I have a receipt book (to use the Victorian term for it) from the 1860s. It belonged to a relative. It has recipes from various parts of the world. Fascinating to read but the quantities and even some of the ingredients would be difficult to cope with now. Nor are the recipes terribly healthy. Lots of cream, sugar salt, saturated fats, etc.

 

As a child, I remember a Mrs Beeton's cook book and a Be-ro cook book from the war years on the bottom shelf of the pantry. Talk about a contradiction in terms!  Mrs Beeton was no expense spared and Be-ro attempted, literally, to make a dish from nothing in an era of nonavailability and rationing. Perhaps I should have kept it. We seem to be going back down that road.

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My very first attempt at making a victoria sponge was at HMP Manning.

I don't know what I did wrong as I followed the recipe in the book to a tee, however the sponges resembled two slices of toast. The teacher who went round at the end of the lesson marking everyone's efforts took one look at mine and just rolled her eyes:rotfl:.

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Was it the delightful Mrs Clarke? Sarcastic little s*d she was.

 

My first attempt at anything in the cookery line at said place was poached eggs on toast! Can't go wrong with that....can you?  Well, we almost set the place on fire. My pal and I (we're still great friends after all these years) delegated responsibility for the dish:she was in charge of the toast and I was in charge of the eggs! It was an electric cooker and we had gas at home but my pal was conversant with electric cookers...or so she said.

 

The toast caught fire under the grill. She forgot it. Busy gassing to another girl! When she realised, she hooked the blazing slices off the pan with a long handled fork and threw them into the plastic pedal bin which was already full of discarded packaging. Whoosh!! The whole lot went up and the bin melted all over the floor. What a stink!  Clarke really laid into us over that and she never forgot it, either.  Dragged up that episode at every conceivable opportunity. I still can't cook but I'm not bad at Latin!

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I have the be ro recipe book which you can still buy if you Google it. The first one was published in 1923. You don’t often see be ro flour in the shops now, it was always the best for cakes. I also have a very interesting book from Southern Living from the States called Cooking Across The South which also serves as a history book as to how the recipes evolved back in the pioneering days. It is similar to Beekay in the quantities used. There is a recipe for Sheep Stew which calls for 50-60 pounds of fat lamb, 3 pounds of white fat pork , 3 pounds of smoked pork side meat, 50-60 pounds of onions, lots of pepper and salt, 4-5 pounds of butter and 3-4 loaves of bread in pieces. If local causes needed funds raising in Virginia they would cook this up and hungry donors would turn out in droves.

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My father knew Tom Bell who was the son of the founder of Be Ro, also Thomas. Tom started the Daybrook factory, the original one being in Newcastle. He lived at Birk House on Oxton Hill and was a great benefactor to the village, giving a large sum to help build the village hall. The original Thomas Bell founded the Bell's Royal works in Newcastle and from that was derived the name Be-Ro. The company was latterly sold to Rank Hovis. I used to walk past the Daybrook factory every morning on my way to school by train from Daybrook station. Curry's shop is now on that site.

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On 11/18/2022 at 4:15 AM, Oztalgian said:

I wish we could get Jamaica Ginger Cake here like McVities and Price used to make.

Go to British corner shop . They sell world Wide with British goods. Every year I get syrup, treacle and other things we can’t get here.

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On 11/20/2022 at 12:35 AM, MRS B said:

Beekay you always make me laugh. It’s not Mrs Beaton no but I do have a “Good Housekeeping” recipe book that was first published in 1948 and was specifically left to me in someone’s will  along with a cake stand. The version I have was a revised edition printed in 1972, actually printed and bound in Italy (one for you nonna). The preface says it is for “newly Weds to experienced hostess” Don’t think I meet either of those descriptions but the book is always a go to for old and tried recipes.

Thankyou Mrs B wish I could get hold of a copy of that book.

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