Your ViewsKeep your e-mails pouring in, it's good to know that there are lots of you out there with views and opinions. To help you work out what is what, are now little icons to help you see biscuit related themes. And now you can see at a glance which are the most contested subjects via this graph (requires Flash 6.0 plugin). Please keep your mails coming in to nicey@nicecupofteaandasitdown.com | If you like, you can use this search thingy to find stuff that matches with any of the icons you pick, or use the fantastic free text search, Yay! | Your e-Mails |
Victoria Wimhurst |
dear Nicey,
i was horrified to see that 84/137 of responses - that's over 60%! - to your current poll claim that the best topping for "fairy cakes" is buttercream icing and bits cut off the top of the cake. Surely everyone knows that those are butterfly cakes? Look, a quick google reveals that not only are they called butterfly cakes, but that they are amongst the "best of british" food:
recipe link
and another
and they are so-called because, obviously, they look like butterflies.
whereas fairy cakes are small cakes in paper cases topped with glace icing (of any colour - pink or white is irrelevant) and decorated in some way - half a glace cherry stuck on top, or sprinkled with hundreds and thousands, or, as Nigella Lawson herself suggests, small sweets like dolly mixtures. So, enough of this butterfly cake nonsense - they are something else entirely (albeit, i admit, closely related). I hate to have to suggest this, but perhaps you should stick to tea and biscuits, which is surely enough for any right thinking person, and stop these occasional forays into what is apparently unknown territory (toast and cake)?
Best wishes - and hello to Wifey!
Victoria.
ps. maybe third time lucky and i'll get onto the feedback page. would it help if i added that, apart from this mistake (perhaps it was a trick question and you knew all along?) your site is fabulous |
Nicey replies: Oi Victoria,
Actually I'm completely with you on the icing thing, Butterfly or Angel cakes what ever, but it was the Wife who put the cat amongst the pigeons saying that's what she considered to be a Fairy cake. So I thought I would do a poll to prove her wrong and so far its not going too well on the side of reason. Now I know that people are going to point our that fairies have wings also hence the name, but I still personally think its icing and something else on top, sometimes even those little edible bicycle wheel ball bearings. |
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Nathan Rippin |
Hi Nicey -
Reading through the reviews' back catalogue, the absence of Fox's Ginger Creams is striking. (A bit of a shock, too, if I'm honest.)
I note that some readers comment on the choc coated ginger nut with near-evangelical zeal, describing it as a heavenly marriage of flavours.
In the same vein but at the other end of the scale (if you like), I think the ginger cream (a sandwich-type construction) a far more attractive combination. Dark chocolate and ginger are each, by themselves, quite strident base flavours - taken together, perhaps too much for more delicate
palates. (Not that I'm not a fan, incidentally.) Ginger and cream, on the other hand, are perfectly suited: the latter a softer counterpoint to the former. (If that makes sense?) Perfect, too, as dunkers - the crisp ginger biscuit on either side of the malleable cream centre acting a little like the stabilisers do on an unsteady child's bike. (Cream alone, I imagine, is hardly a natural choice for a good dunking?) In sum, then: ginger creams, a perfect ensemble of taste, texture and structure.
I urge you to review said biscuits with all speed. (A face off between wholemeal and sweetmeal digestives would also be most welcome, if your taste buds can stand the strain.)
Ta.
nathan
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Maurice Boardman |
Dear Nicey,
I'm enjoying yor site for the first time... got a link from an ex-pat friend in California. I remember the vending machine at Cornhill Insurance in Guildford. 2p per cup, 3p for hot chocolate. At 10am and 3pm for 30 minutes each, the company put them on free so we could all enjoy their wares. I'd get sent with a tray and everyone's orders. Awful stuff, it was, but being computer types, we'd eat and drink just about anything in the middle of the night.
In case you're wondering about the prices, I'm talking about 1975. Blimey, that stuff made a lasting impression - 30 years on and I still remember it. |
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Helen Buttigieg
Regal Multireview Review |
Dear Nicey
Thank you so much for reminding me of Imqaret - absolutely yummy treat. It reminds me of my childhood and my visits to Malta (my Dad being Maltese) - makes me want to return.
As for the vegemite debate - every Aussie knows the best way to eat vegemite is on warm toast with lots of butter and a small amount of Vegemite. It's amazing how good it makes you feel if you're ill/hung over/or both.
Love the website since first hearing about it on BBC2 whilst working in London last year.
Cheers
Helen
Sydney, Australia |
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Johnny Lothian |
Just writing to wish you a very happy, if belated birthday Nicey.
What the public want to know, of course, is if there was a particular treat that was kept to accompany the special birthday sit down and mug of tea in NCOTAASD HQ? Or did you just have cake? |
Nicey replies: Actually given that it was a fairly chilly damp and drizzly day we had a BBQ in the HQ grounds. I've had a couple of slices of Battenburg today though. Wifey bought me a splendid plastic box to keep screws in, and because it was obviously a special day, a hose reel for the outside tap. |
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