Victoria Sponge

Over the past few months Bert has taken to making cakes and usually, they are very good. He started with baked cheesecakes and these were excellent. His Chocolate Guinness has been a big success on two occasions. But... he is becoming over confident, and thinks he can do no wrong. At Christmas his Sicilian Orange and Lemon cake was a flop, literally. It is a tricky one but I've managed to make it work many times. 

Now Chocolate Guinness cake may be easy but the classic Victoria Sponge is not. I remember serving up a failed VS to the children many years ago and Martha asking me,

Granny, why are your cakes always like biscuits?

We are having people over this Saturday (many of them Australian) and Bert is making a Victoria Sponge. This is Thursday. I'm all for getting ahead but I'd have thought the day before would be soon enough. Anyway I've just gone in to the kitchen to check on his progress and he seems to be making a hash of it. I kindly told him so and he assures me that all will be well. He is using cake tins that are far too deep and he has not lined them! 

I am torn between hoping his Victoria Sponge will be successful and wanting it to be a disaster so that I can say,

I told you so!

Here's what I think. He could not care less if his cake does not work out because he wants to eat it immediately, no matter what. 

Mary Berry's Victoria Sponge. Bert has a lot to live up to here. I'll keep you all posted.

Rock Cakes

Slams, clatters and rattles are coming from the kitchen. I go in to find Bert is out with the kitchen scales, the self-raising flour and his go-to baking book, Mary Berry's Favourite Recipes, published in 1988. 

I ask,

What are you making? 

Rock cakes.

Ugh!

What's wrong with rock cakes?

Stodgy and boring.

Don't have any then.

Since Bert stopped smoking he cannot stop eating and if there is nothing 'nice' in the house he will make something. 

He goes to the fridge and doesn't find what he's looking for.

There's no margarine! Mary Berry says margarine. Can I use butter instead?

No. If the recipe says margarine then margarine it must be.

His face falls. I relent.

Of course, you could use butter. That book is ancient. I'll bet Mary Berry never uses margarine now. Nobody does.

He relaxes.

The recipe also called for demerara sugar and there isn't enough. He uses soft brown to make it up. Mixed fruit. He takes sultanas, seedless raisins and chopped cherries and mixes them together. In very short order the rock cakes are in the oven. He's covered in flour and he doesn't wash up.

Never mind. I pour two glasses of wine and we go to watch Unforgotten.

Luckily the rock cakes were Unforgotten. Out of the oven in time and they weren't the least bit stodgy or boring. They were yum. 

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter

This evening, around the supper table, I made my confession. We were eating a rather nice cake at the time, one from a Mary Berry cookbook, published in 1988 - her favourite recipes no less! But those were the days when Mary Berry was just a jobbing food writer, not the huge celebrity she is today. I expect, back then, butter might have been a bit of a luxury item in the Berry household.

Now, the Nellyberts can afford butter, more especially since one of them (moi) became eligible for the state pension. The problem in the Nellybert household is that Nelly's cakes just won't rise. Martha even asked, a few months back,

Granny, why is your cake like a biscuit?

So, when I found Mary Berry's Favourite Recipes, I knew there would be a method for making a cake that would work for me. I found a likely one and followed it to the letter, right down to the margarine. I chose Stork, a margarine so good that seven out of ten people can't tell it from butter.* Back when I was a child only posh people baked with Stork. My mother, with her seven children, could only afford Echo margarine but, despite this, her baking pleased her children very much indeed. Mrs Hanna from next door always used Stork. I'm sure Aunt Sadie used it too. All the well-doing farmer's wives baked with Stork, never Echo.

That cake mixture creamed like a dream, rose like a cloud, tasted delicious. Twice I've given it to the family with no complaints. This evening was the third time. A plain cake, spread with Lorraine's delectable plum jam, sprinkled liberally with desiccated coconut and served with Bert's famous thin custard. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Then I confessed. They started to gag. (Slight exaggeration). The firstborn googled Stork margarine ingredients even though she never uses phones at mealtimes. Obviously, this was an emergency. Turns out that Stork margarine has three kinds of vegetable oil, one of which is palm oil. It has carotene for, without colouring, margarine would just look pale and very unappetising. And it has emulsifiers, a word that always makes me feel like gagging. Oh well. Looks like it's back to butter. I'll let my loyal reader know how I get on.

*1970s advertising campaign