Cake for Beginners

Cake for Beginners ©

By Michael Casey

My small daughter has just come home from school with cake in a plastic tin, we used to used old biscuit tins now kids will use plastic containers, to bring home their burnt offerings. Things that would kill the gods and end their immortality stone dead. Luckily for us my small daughter is becoming a good cook, even if they use electric ovens at school. Ask any chef, fire is king, I remember when we had fire alarms at the hotel all the chefs would come out in their whites and curse the idiot smoking in a non -smoking area. The gas  is automatically cut of when the fire alarm sounds , so any false alarms delay dinner, which should be cooked with a flame called gas.

My mother used to make fairy cakes that came in a packet, mix the mixture with an egg thrown in and a splash of milk then you had fairy cakes. And yes, I was first in the queue. I remember being scared by a bull dog breaking through the old back fence and how I was consoled with a fairy cake. This would be maybe 55 years ago.

Sundays meant Madeira cake which was a slab of yellow stuff that we had with a pot of tea at maybe 6 o’clock a few hours after we’d had the Sunday dinner. Mum used to buy it on the Saturday with the hope we would not find it till she sliced it out the next day. I can also remember how if we did not devour it all then it started to taste funny days later, and either mum would eat it herself with butter spread on top or the birds had a feast.

Mum also used to bake an occasional soda bread which was solid and dense but tasted good with butter on. Or as a side order with bacon and mushrooms, though I seem to remember soda bread at its best was when I was in Kerry on holiday staying with my aunts. My uncle Patrick might walk through the fields and pick out a few mushrooms and that’d be part of the breakfast with bacon and sausages and tomatoes. My aunty Bridie was great, as was Delia too and no I not forgetting all the cousins, but it is a Clan so I cannot mention  everybody.

Delia would drive me or me and my dad or me and anybody all over Kerry as we visited the Clan. Tea and cake at every place, you could but on a stone in 2 weeks and I did. The Irish by the way drink more tea than the English, trust me I know. Delia was a great chef too, in fact she even worked as a chef in the hospital amongst her many many talents. Love and Laughter being her greatest. Though she did play a trick on me. I was accused of not sharing a Christmas cake she had once sent back over to Birmingham. It was a very nice cake, I could not possibly condemn myself, all I’ll say is I don’t remember IF I did share it. So when Delia heard the story she hid the next cake somewhere where I could not find it, maybe in my own suitcase. All I do know is that when me and my sister got back to Birmingham my sister magically produced a cake, a cake made by Delia our aunty.

Now the generations move on and my daughter is fast becoming a great cake maker, though I doubt if she will be as big as my 17.5 stone aunty. We are also spoilt because we have a Polish store nearby which means we eat their cake too. As we don’t know any Polish we pick by the picture on the wrapper and leads to many interesting experiences. Though 9/10 times it’s good. Different people like their cake differently, so sugar levels differ dramatically. Polish pop comes in 2.25 litre bottles too and they only charge 1.49 which is a bargain.  So you can have your Polish cake and eat it washed down with fizzy pop. I haven’t been brave enough try Polish beer, maybe for Christmas when I allow myself a few beers. Remember heart meds don’t mix with any alcohol.

It’s nearly time for tea, or coffee in my case, I will be sampling my daughter’s new cake, freshly baked from school today. Then I would watch the Great British Bake Off but that has finished, so I’ll watch Star Trek instead. Do you think Captain Kirk and Spock make fairy cakes together, as they boldly go where no man or iceing sugar has done before.