Heaven: Cakes We Have Loved

SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
edited January 2023 in Limbo
Over in All Saint on The Between the Equator and the South Pole thread there has been some discussion on Neenish tarts. Living in the UK I'd never heard of them but it got me thinking of cakes I've enjoyed in the past.
My family used to have an Eccles cake challenge where we would always buy them from any bakery we were passing while on holiday and give them marks out of ten. The best we found were from a bakery in Lyme Regis, quite a long way from Eccles. I also like Bakewell Tart and even more Bakewell Pudding. I haven't had one of those in years, as unlike the tarts they don't seem to have caught on outside of Bakewell.
Round here in our new East Midlands home a lot of bakeries sell cornflake tart. Not something I spotted while living in London, but I don't know if it is a local speciality or not.
What are your favourite traditional sweet cakes, pastries or tart?
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Comments

  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I am to baking what a rhinoceros is to tap dancing. I can turn out a no-bake cheesecake, or, at a stretch, a French apple cake (which is really a giant fruited Yorkshire pud). But there it stops.

    We shun the horrible Mr K*****g and buy a brand called Nevis. Or occasionally a porter cake (at the end of the Asian aisle in Sainsbury's there's a tiny Irish section).

    I can't actually think of anywhere near by that resembles the bakeries of my childhood, with trays of fondant fancies and cream buns. It's all artisanal sourdough, or at best Danish or croissants.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    The Commonsense Cookbook ( Aussie classic) has been my friend these 50+ years and to it I owe orange& poppyseed cake, spiced carrot cake, boiled fruit cake and other Old Faithfuls. In latter days I made the acquaintance of red velvet cake ( not a favourite but one is trotted out at work every 01 Dec-World AIDS Day for them as are not in the know) and French apple cake.
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    I do quite a nice chocolate cheesecake and a decent carrot cake. Sticky toffee pudding probably counts for these purposes.

    Of my own creation I have a rather crumbly chocolate traybake, which adds syrup, dried fruit, yoghurt and chopped dark chocolate to a chocolate sponge.

    Little Miss Feet has devised a recipe for chocolate muffins that uses cream cheese to make them moist.
  • I used to work in a cake factory, which made quite good cakes, anyway, the highlight of every day was elevenses, when we had eccles cakes fresh from the oven. They were delicious. Of course, some eccles cakes are awful, squashed flies, to borrow a term.
  • My Lancastrian grandmother made Eccles cakes so they were a strong feature of my childhood, as was her meat pudding. The Luton council estate bakeries of my childhood were probably similar to those of Firenze, with cream buns, cream horns and marshmallow in cornets with sprinkles, a personal childhood favourite.

    My husband does most of the baking round here but I am rather partial to a proper Yorkshire curd tart made with homemade curds.

    If I'm picking up a cake in a supermarket it will probably be a custard slice as I love custard. At Christmas it would be Stollen as I love marzipan too.
  • The mention of curd pie is Proustian for me, as my mum and her mum used to make it, and I used to. I notice that lemon juice or rennet is found in recipes, but we used vinegar. Puts hair on your chest, if you're from Yorkshire!
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited May 2022
    Another non-baker here although I have a few staples and can do passable pasteis de nata (Portuguese custard tarts). I'm more inclined to savoury snacking but friends visiting from Cape Town bring us Hazelnut-Choc Cruffins from Jason's Bakery (a cruffin is a croissant combined with a muffin), salted caramel and peanut-butter cupcakes from Charly's Bakery, slices of red-velvet cake or passionfruit pavlovas from Queen of Tarts. Not sure all of these bakeries came through the pandemic...
  • HeavenlyannieHeavenlyannie Shipmate
    edited May 2022
    I usually use lemon juice for curd tart, though I often use cider vinegar if making curds for soft cheese (rather than cake). Presumably vinegar was traditionally used as it would have been cheaper than lemons.
    Rennet sounds an unnecessary expense if you just want curds for baking (rather than cheese making, which I used to do but no longer have the space).
  • rhubarbrhubarb Shipmate
    I make the Golden Circle boiled pineapple fruit cake which has become a family favourite. It requires very little effort and performs a good function as a quick Christmas cake.
  • Eccles Cake and Bakewell Pudding look luscious! Over here we have something called Brown Betty (although many consider that name politically incorrect). Also Shoo-Fly Pie.
  • DiomedesDiomedes Shipmate
    I can usually take or leave cakes and pastries - I seem to have sweet-tooth deficiency - but the Butter Tarts we ate in Wellington, Ontario we something else! Perhaps it's the maple syrup rather than sugar but I'd have happily brought a suitcase-full home with me.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Sojourner wrote: »
    In latter days I made the acquaintance of red velvet cake ( not a favourite but one is trotted out at work every 01 Dec-World AIDS Day for them as are not in the know) and French apple cake.
    Red velvet cake is very much a staple in the American South, but it’s not a favorite of mine either as I don’t like chocolate cake of any kind. (I know, weird.)

    But the mere mention of caramel cake results in transports of delight. It’s the icing that’s caramel; the cake is what around here is called yellow cake—a batter cake made with butter and egg yolk. Buttered coconut pie and gooey butter cake also make me very, very happy. And while bad-to-mediocre pecan pies are easy to find, a good pecan pie is a thing of beauty.

  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    I used to bake everything, like my mom and all the ladies did where I grew up. Nick's caramel cake reminds me of one of my favorites (and my choice for birthday cake every year), except that the caramel icing was on a dark chocolate cake. The frosting was very like penuche fudge.

    My favorite cake to make and share is gingerbread. It's not too sweet, but has a lot of spicy goodness because I add 3-4 times the amount of ginger and cinnamon that's called for in the recipe.

    Last July 4, I took an old-fashioned dessert to the party Daughter-Unit and her dear hubby hosted. It was a staple at pot lucks and family reunions when I was growing up. It's really easy to make, and has a cheesecake like layer on a graham cracker crust bottom, and then covered with cherry pie (or blueberry) filling. None of the young 30-40 year olds had ever had it before and they absolutely ate every crumb!
  • And then there's a Flaming Baked Alaska. White cake covered with vanilla ice cream. Then the whole thing is covered with meringue and sprinkled with heated Bacardi 151 Proof rum, and set aflame.

    Some people use rainbow sherbet instead of vanilla ice cream.
  • I bake only very rarely. But I must put in a word for the truffle torte in Delia Smith's Christmas book (the green one with the red bow on the cover). It is essentially a giant-sized truffle that you can cut into little slices and which just melts in your mouth. And it's easy to make. Contains dark chocolate, double cream, glucose and rum for the truffle, and amaretti biscuits for the topping.

    Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    jedijudy wrote: »
    My favorite cake to make and share is gingerbread. It's not too sweet, but has a lot of spicy goodness because I add 3-4 times the amount of ginger and cinnamon that's called for in the recipe.
    I bake individual gingerbread cakes for Christmas dinner dessert every year, and the family seems to look forward to them. Similarly not too sweet, and I use three kinds of ginger (fresh, ground and crystallized). I serve them with a warm apple cider caramel glaze and fresh whipped cream.

  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Purgatory Host, Circus Host
    I love making CAKE. My basic cake is what the French call a "four quarters" - weigh the eggs, and then use equal amounts by weight of flour, sugar and butter. You can add all kinds of stuff to it, like fruit, cocoa, marmelade...

    I'm not immune to fancier stuff though. My most recent triumph was a blood orange and rhubarb confection with ground almonds in the batter. Mmmmmmm.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    That’s the same as what I’d call a Victoria sponge.

    We have another recipe in our family which we know as ‘Mrs Pye’s Sponge’. She was married to William Pye, founder of Pye Radio and they were patients of my GP grandfather. It produces a lighter sponge, but it doesn’t keep quite as long.
  • MooMoo Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Eccles Cake and Bakewell Pudding look luscious! Over here we have something called Brown Betty (although many consider that name politically incorrect). Also Shoo-Fly Pie.

    A nice variamt on Brown Betty is made with gingersnaps.

  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    Chocolate eclairs for me but I would have to buy them.
  • Lily PadLily Pad Shipmate
    edited May 2022
    I love cake. And icing too. Especially butter cream icing.
    The birthday party cakes and special occasion cakes in this house are baked in pans that my grandfather used. He was a commercial baker in Montreal from the 1920's to the 1960's. They supplied all the baked desserts to many restaurants all over the city. The pans are about nine inches round and take a full regular cake recipe in each one. I must say that I get a lot of pleasure from using a these pans. Someday, when this pandemic eases up a bit more, I will bring out the cake pans. I know they are just pans, but they bring me such pleasure.
  • How strange to see this thread started, only a couple of weeks ago I was bemoaning the disappearance of the freshly baked cakes and pastries that used to tempt me in traditional bakers shops. There was a lovely one in the large village in Essex that we moved from about 6 years ago, and at least two in each of the two nearby towns, but I have seen nothing like that since we came here.
    There are none in this town, and those I have seen elsewhere in the area have quite a limited range, No cream horns, no choux buns, not many shortcrust pastries except mince pies at Christmas, and certainly none of the pineapple tarts I remember from my childhood.
    In fact I was standing in a bakers in a nearby town looking at their meagre display and fancying a non-existent cream horn when I realised what a wide range of traditional baked treats had disappeared from our shops.

    Like Heavenlyannie I can be tempted by a supermarket custard slice, but not much else that has been in a chiller cabinet for a couple of days.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    You'll be cheered to learn that Boy #2 intends to run an establishment somewhat like that (with café) in due course. Might be a while as he's in year 10 at the moment but he has it all planned out.

    The ginger cupcakes he made today, hot on the heels of yesterday's chocolate orange ones are doing nothing good for my waistline.

    I'm not a fan of whipped cream (needs mixing with mascarpone, sugar and alcohol in my view) but I might suggest he try cream horns. There would be a nostalgic market for them, clearly, not to mention younger people buying them ironically or not even realising they're not a new thing. I'm old enough to remember the "Naughty but nice" fresh cream cakes adverts.

    [Muses]Or Creme pat. horns (he did some chocolate éclairs with creme pat. the other month. His elder brother is dairy intolerant and you can make a dairy free creme pat. All his output is dairy free at the moment.[/Muses]

    Anyone hungry? Anyone remember Dastardly and Mutley? "Mutley! Get me out of this giant cream puff!"
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I'm not a fan of whipped cream (needs mixing with mascarpone, sugar and alcohol in my view) . . . .
    I always put sugar and alcohol (bourbon typically) or vanilla in whipped cream.

    Meanwhile, in bakeries I’m a sucker for Mandelhörnchen/almond horns and for cannolis.

    Good luck to Boy #2!

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I love making CAKE. My basic cake is what the French call a "four quarters" - weigh the eggs, and then use equal amounts by weight of flour, sugar and butter. You can add all kinds of stuff to it, like fruit, cocoa, marmelade...

    I'm not immune to fancier stuff though. My most recent triumph was a blood orange and rhubarb confection with ground almonds in the batter. Mmmmmmm.

    We're not cake-bakers, but do so when necessary. A trick we've adopted to make life easier is to buy a packet cake mix and substitute a bit of liqueur for some of the specified liquid. Not a great deal, but it well and truly disguises cake's origins. Swapping a bit of jam or marmalade for some of the sugar helps also.
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    If I'm doing whipped cream (particularly to go with something chocolatey) I'll zest lemon and/or lime into it.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Purgatory Host, Circus Host
    All this talk of whipped cream has reminded that I have finally nailed the art of making rum baba, which is husband en rouge's favourite dessert. Conclusion of my research: fresh yeast works much better than dried.

    I don't bother making my own Chantilly, though. I can buy it in a can in the cheese shop. It's proper whipped cream, not synthetic squirty cream.
  • Kannas an AweylKannas an Aweyl Shipmate Posts: 40
    My fave has to be Saffron Cake. Not so much for its taste as its emotional connection to growing up in my homeland of Cornwall and the impossibility of getting it where I am now, on the wrong side of the Tamar.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    My fave has to be Saffron Cake. Not so much for its taste as its emotional connection to growing up in my homeland of Cornwall and the impossibility of getting it where I am now, on the wrong side of the Tamar.

    Hard to get outside Kernow. As are decent pasties. It is a matter of some disquiet that Ginsters mediocre offerings legally qualify as Cornish Pasties owing to being made there. A proper one is a thing of beauty.
  • NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
    My two signature bakes are chocolate-covered flapjack (my mum's recipe) and lemon polenta cake. Both of these appear regularly here (I'm planning a flapjack bake today) as they are easy, fail proof and suitable for the gluten-intolerant Mr Nen.

    Cake to love when eating out - most types. My cake-with-coffee of choice would usually be caramel shortbread, but I'm also partial to carrot cake and chocolate brownie. And Belgian buns. Mmmm...
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    All this talk of whipped cream has reminded that I have finally nailed the art of making rum baba, which is husband en rouge's favourite dessert. <snip>
    I haven’t seen a rum baba for years. It was my treat of choice at coffee time when my mum took me shopping.
  • I make orange polenta cake as my go to gluten free cake. Must try a lemon one.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    We have three bakeries here, two independent, one a good chain and various stalls on the market that sell cakes. Not spotted cream horns but the chain bakery does round shaped eclairs that I have heard been called elephants feet. I do try to avoid cake, though I had a rather nice Victoria sponge while out with friends yesterday. I do love a coffee and walnut cake too, even though I'm slightly allergic to nuts
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Simnel cake is a once yearly special; my version is derived from that in the good old Commonsense cookbook. I usually make 8, 4 of which are posted overseas and ( if luck and OzPost are on side) they reach their destination by Mothering Sunday. The rest go to close friends and ( some) family. This year I used home made marzipan rather than Blackwood’s after acquiring someone else’s unwanted food processor and it made all the difference ( at half the cost). A very good cake & all the better since like Xmas cake a yearly special.

    I was in the UK around Easter some years back & tried out the Waitrose version; not bad for shop bought.
  • When I was at grammar school I used to cook our Christmas cake (and Christmas pudding) in the summer holidays, and leave them wrapped in aluminium foil until the Christmas holidays when I would marzipan them and cover them with royal icing. There is less call for such a heavy cake now I am in Australia.

    I still make my own mincemeat, and that provides a good filling for Eccles cakes. My mince pies are a tiny spoonful in puff pastry. They are not too heavy for a sub-tropical Christmas.

    I have tried different Easter cakes such as Simnel, kulich, and last year I made my own pannetone.

    My favourite bought cakes are Portuguese tarts and kataifi.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Funny about heavy cakes in a hot summer Oz but family & friends still clamour for them; 2 cakes and 2 puddings are routinely posted to Queensland every year.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    One year I’ll try Kulich at Easter
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    I may stay off this thread as I am qualified Patisserier.
    I will add though that all those who talk about Eccles Cakes have you tried Chorley Cake? They are kind of a flat scone with all the fruit in the middle and the paste wrapped around. Served with propped butter.
    My favourite things to make are French Fruit Tarts.
  • @Hugal . What is propped butter?

    On Thursday mornings we transport meals from a community centre to a breakfast 'club'. On the way we stop for breakfast at a French Patisserie called L'Ultime. They have fabulous looking (and eating) individual and large fruit tarts.
  • For day-to-day we always have some sort of fruit cake in the tin, either a rich Dundee or a boiled fruitcake. Other than that, Coffee & Walnut cake or a proper Black Forest cake - the only reason I keep a bottle of Kirschwasser. On the rare occasions we have a tea party I can turn out decent éclairs which I top with either chocolate or coffee icing.
  • I prefer Chorley cakes to to Eccles (or as autocorrect tried, E-cycles), as they are not covered with sugar.
    I started buying them as an alternative for Mr RoS who hates sugar sprinkled on anything, and now I would pick a Chorley cake against Eccles any time

    I used to enjoy baking, but cooking of any kind is now mostly a chore, and in recent years my attempts at making cakes have generally failed - except for boiled fruitcake. That, thankfully, seems to be idiot-proof so that is what can usually be found in my cake tin. It lasts well, too, so I don't have to make it very often.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Nenya wrote: »
    My two signature bakes are chocolate-covered flapjack (my mum's recipe) and lemon polenta cake. Both of these appear regularly here (I'm planning a flapjack bake today) as they are easy, fail proof and suitable for the gluten-intolerant Mr Nen.
    I had to look “flapjacks” up. Here, that’s another term for pancakes/hot cakes, and I was trying to imagine chocolate-covered pancakes.

  • Chorley cakes, another Proustian shock. My wife gave me another by reminding me of buttered fruit cake. I mean butter spread on cake, oh frabjous. And of course, with cheese. We always had a fruit cake in the pantry, or as my mum called it, the dairy, (Yorks).
  • NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Nenya wrote: »
    My two signature bakes are chocolate-covered flapjack (my mum's recipe) and lemon polenta cake. Both of these appear regularly here (I'm planning a flapjack bake today) as they are easy, fail proof and suitable for the gluten-intolerant Mr Nen.
    I had to look “flapjacks” up. Here, that’s another term for pancakes/hot cakes, and I was trying to imagine chocolate-covered pancakes.
    Interesting. What do you call a tray bake made with oats, syrup, sugar, butter and (in my recipe's case) a bit of salt and vanilla flavouring, then?
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    I’d guess most folks here would call them oat bars or granola bars. I say “I’d guess” because I really can’t think of a standard name for that.

    “Tray bake” is another term not used here, at least not in my part of the US. Such things would usually be called “___ bars” here.

  • Granola bars I have bought and eaten here in the UK are much sweeter than flapjack, or at least than the traditional home-made ones.
    Also flapjacks as I've known them all my life do not have fruit in them as standard. I do have a recipe from the eighties, or thereabouts, for banana flapjack, but have never made them.
    I expect dried fruit and other luxurious ingredients have crept in during the last couple of decades, but may very well be on their way out again.
  • TrudyTrudy Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited May 2022
    I also have suffered from flapjack confusion as I've often heard British people mention them and have, of course, pictured pancakes, which don't seem to work at all in the contexts being discussed -- like Victoria Coren-Mitchell's shocking revelation on Taskmaster that she always carries an emergency flapjack in her purse. It was actually just this week that I finally googled to see what the UK "flapjacks" are and was quite surprised. I don't think we really have anything that's equivalent to that here in Canada. Must keep an eye out for some flapjacks on my UK trip this fall!
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    If you like them they are very easy to make when you get back home again.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    Flapjacks or similar are all over the place in the UK. Most coffee shops have them and I can't imagine a National Trust tea shop without them. I also like tiffin, rocky road and millionaire's shortbread which are similar 'traybake' like confections.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Trudy wrote: »
    I also have suffered from flapjack confusion as I've often heard British people mention them and have, of course, pictured pancakes, which don't seem to work at all in the contexts being discussed -- like Victoria Coren-Mitchell's shocking revelation on Taskmaster that she always carries an emergency flapjack in her purse. It was actually just this week that I finally googled to see what the UK "flapjacks" are and was quite surprised. I don't think we really have anything that's equivalent to that here in Canada.
    I really can’t think of anything equivalent in the American South either. I suggested granola bars simply because that seemed to come sort of close, but maybe not.

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