Cakes and Home-bakes

 The kindness of strangers 

The coffee walnut cake in this photo was made for us by a total stranger.  Thank you Maggie of Duntroon B&B in Nairn. She made this just because I told her on the phone when I booked that it was a wedding trip.

Some of the best people love to bake - sadly, many others are frightened of cake. 

Cake-oholics have such a strong desire to scoff the lot that they are unhappy around home bakes. Writing workshops focusing on food can be fraught with dangers as relationships with food seem to be dysfunctional in so many people. (But that's not a subject for a cheery blog post.)

BUT in Scotland there is still much enthusiasm and I've made friends and connections owing to the marvellous female freemasonary of baking.  In the Town Hall cafe in Oldmeldrum a friendly lady exhorted us to visit Delgatie Castle as it had won an award for the Best Home Bakes recently. The splendid Town Hall cafe is run by a group of volunteers and is always full of grateful customers. In winter here many things shut down but not these small local centres of cake-centred excellence. Delgatie Castle's Laird's Kitchen is open all year round and this little castle is run by another group of enthusiastic women as the Castle is now a private Trust and kept alive by those who value it.

On Radio 3 the other morning I was surprised to hear Fraserburgh (a local town) mentioned - a woman had phoned in about being proactive in music education.  She said it was no use waiting on the vagaries of unreliable governments and that we should create the things we want for our communities ourselves. I suspect that her musical education initiative involves cake in some way.

It seems that for many communities home bakes are a way of bringing people together and making them feel good. Here's a quotation from another local business based in Banff - Spindrift Studio bookshop and cafe -  "for Writers and Readers and Lovers of Cake". I am still looking for a grown-up poem about the value of cake - so many are childish and don't explain the appeal for adults.  Michael Rosen's Chocolate Cake was written for children but has its darker side. Link below. 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/michael-rosen-chocolate-cake/8833.html

The New Ground Gallery and Tea Room here in Gardenstown also deserves a mention for providing us with marvellous gluten-free cakes so that everyone can enjoy them (you'd never know).


Displacement Activity
For many writers baking is a creative substitute - we make a lot of cakes before settling down to write . It sure beats cleaning. 

There are many recipe poems

You may want to have a try at one.  Using the language of recipes, especially the verbs, can be very effective: fold, mix, blend, add, stir, combine, whisk, shape, cut, paint, decorate, smooth, taste ....

Also CAKE is a four letter word that is a good basis for acrostic poems. 

Copyright prevents me from including some poems here and it's good to respect the need of poets to make a living.

But here's a snatch from a poem I love and have used often in workshops:

Eating Poetry

BY MARK STRAND

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.

There is no happiness like mine.

I have been eating poetry.

There is currently a news item that claims German Stollen has become more popular than Traditional British Christmas cake. I don't have a problem with this as it means we can have both.  We can have our cake and eat it and then eat another. 

  

Dresden’s Christmas market was mentioned in the chronicles for the first time in 1474. The tradition of baking Christmas Stollen in Dresden is very old. Christmas Stollen in Dresden was already baked in the 15th century.

In 1560 the bakers of Dresden offered the rulers of Saxony Christmas Stollen weighing 36 pounds each as gift, and the custom continued. Augustus II the Strong (1670 –1733) was the Elector of Saxony, King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania. The King loved pomp, luxury, splendour and feasts. In 1730 he impressed his subjects, ordering the Bakers’ Guild of Dresden to make a giant 1.7-tonne Stollen, big enough for everyone to have a portion to eat. There were around 24,000 guests who were taking part in the festivities on the occasion of the legendary amusement festivity known as Zeithainer Lustlager. For this special occasion, the court architect Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann (1662-1737), built a particularly oversize Stollen oven.  An oversized Stollen Knife also had been designed solely for this occasion.

 Don't you love the idea of a giant community cake with its own oversized knife?

Scottish Christmas Cake 

A particular  favourite of many is the traditional Scottish Christmas cake, the Whisky Dundee. As the name implies, the cake originated in Dundee and is made with Scotch Whisky.  

In England we're more used to this sort of thing and as it's my last blog before Christmas...

You may need to know the names of those reindeer.....

NOW, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!

On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

The Night Before Christmas

by Clement C. Moore  (1779 - 1863)

Happy New Year!

I want to add the name of a friend here.  I am writing this postscript in April and want to remember and celebrate another doyenne of home-baking, my friend Yvette Sutton who died on 17th April. Yvette had many other talents too but cake making gave her much pleasure and later on she turned a hobby into a business.  She will be missed by all who were lucky enough to know her.