2024 Week 14: Favourite recipe #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

So, despite the heading, I'm not going to write about a favourite recipe that an ancestor has passed down to me, simply because there isn't one. What or rather whom I'm going to write about is my mum, Helen Anderson, who absolutely loved baking. And it is this love of baking that has been passed on to me.

My mum.

My mum was always baking. Like most children, I got allowed to 'lick the spoon' and taste the raw cake mixture. I got to learn to how to make crispie cakes. I watched how to make pancakes and enjoyed getting the first ones off the pan. I took in helpful baking hints like 'half fat to flour' for pastry or ' 4 4 4 plus 2' for the measurements of flour, sugar, butter and eggs needed for a sponge cake or little butterfly cakes.

She had learned how to bake from her mother, as many women in her generation had done. There was always something 'in the tin' should a friend or neighbour pop in for a cup of tea. But she didn't just bake for us. She baked for the church, whenever there was a special meeting or event. She baked for the bowling green, for the teas that would be provided at 'half-time' during important 'ties' or matches. She even baked for my school where I taught, providing cakes to be sold for fund raising events. And it was never just a cake or a few small cakes - she would bake enough to fill a baker's wooden tray. At Christmas time, she would bake and decorate a large fruit Christmas cake, a sultana cake and a cherry cake. For Hallowe'en, there would always be a fruit dumpling, steamed in a cloth, with little charms or coins hidden inside, wrapped in greaseproof paper.

Her pride and joy was the Kenwood Chef mixer my dad gave her one Christmas. It made light work of all the cakes, scones, traybakes and pastries she produced.

I'd like to think that she would be happy knowing that I too enjoy baking - though not in the quantity she did. It was something I also introduced my children too when they were little - and I have a video to prove it, starring my daughter presenting a baking programme which she called 'Katie's Kitchen'! Though if I remember correctly that cake got stuck to the tin! :) :)

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