Monday 4 April 2011

CONFISCATED CAKE

A wet Monday is greatly improved by tackling chores in the kitchen whilst listening to the radio. Invariably I find myself arrested mid-chore as a particular topic unfolds.


Today it was Mary Berry talking about making a Simnel Cake. I love marzipan and it gave me the idea of making one. This lovely lady reminds me of my days in the 1980s working at the Greater Glasgow Health Board. Popular at that time was the Star Wars culture. Characters like Darth Vador and ChewBacca are names I always associate with Mary Berry!


She had a suggestion for a wet day: take all the cake tins out of your cupboard, get a felt pen and mark their sizes on the bottom. The ruler in the photo is one I have had since age 10! Part of baking on a wet morning is having a visit with all those things: tatty recipe cards, spattered cook-books, bits and pieces still being used!


As the program was ending Jane Garvey read out an email from a listener: an 80 year old lady recounted the time she was traveling to Italy with her Simnel Cake and was pulled aside at the security check. "Ah... it will be a cake, I'll bet you anything!" says the security man to her. Yes, it was. She had her cake confiscated because marzipan going through the scanning machine looks like Semtex! Later: apparently it smells like marzipan too!

1 comment:

Vagabonde said...

That trip you are taking on the train sounds quite nice. I also reserved a trip for May going from Paris to Brussels – I wished to go on to Amsterdam then back to Paris but the train site would not let me do it. So instead we’ll go back to Paris then fly to Vienna, where we have never been. I did all my reservations on the Net – how easy. I remember the first time we went to Amsterdam in 1968 I sent a letter to a B&B – they were full – sent another one, and so on. It took a long time! I envy you going to that wedding with the beautiful music. While on the Queen Victoria last month we saw several gentlemen with beautiful Scottish garments – one had a red jacket. I would have liked to ask him what it represented, but I was shy… Have a good trip and take many pictures.