Pat-a-Cake

Today

Some time ago Becky took it into her head to name Dixons on the Dixons Facebook page after fruit. This caused quite a furore as people discussed whether it mattered if you were a gooseberry etc. When Jacob decided that he really didn't want to be a cherimoya (well, would you want to resemble a fruit that looks like a stone? and has anyone ever seen, let alone eaten, one?) I decided to exercise my admin rights and renamed us all as cakes.

Jacob, who has been known to work out, is a rock cake. Ruth, who loves all things Scandinavian was very happy to be a Danish Pastry. And Beatrice thanked me for naming her a melting moment. "I remember them", she said. "I used to make them - they were foolproof".

In My Day

I wouldn't say that we ate a lot of cakes as children. Mamma was a good cook with a distinct range of cakes made regularly. Melting moments were an aberration, the recipe being cut out from the back of a packet of Scott's porage oats. Foolproof indeed - probably best for Beatrice who isn't a natural.

Mamma taught me how to bake a cake. How to cream sugar and marge until they were light and fluffy. How to sift fruit with flour so that it didn't sink to the bottom. I can make a sponge without a recipe and my chocolate fat-free sponge with cream and strawberries is a birthday staple for Paul.

She made fruit cake, chocolate cake, caraway seed cake (I remember those as being so moist & flavoursome), German plum cake, a rum, apple and raisin cake involving yeast and cinnamon stars at Christmas.

She bought some cakes - angel cake (which I thought was rather bland) battenburg and chocolate cup cakes which were cloying.

But generally cakes were rare treats and one that I find I can largely do without.

It was a far cry from the situation in Paul's family where his mother made a cake weekly. Her "bung-in" cake had the sole merit of containing heaps of spices which helped to offset their appalling heaviness.

I remember a family christening where all the cakes were of a uniform mid-brown and very heavy. "Well," said their creator "my cakes are all food".

Whatever cakes are for, it isn't for nutrition.