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| Maureen Killip |
Although I love biscuits dearly of course, I am at heart a cake person, and have just returned from a cake & beer themed holiday in Europe. I was pleasantly surprised by the availability of both decent tea & sitdowns, although biscuits were thin on the ground. However, the stunning cakes banished all thoughts of biscuits from my mind, so I thought you might like to see a pic of the truely awe inspiring Russian Cream Torte (from a lovely cafe behind the palace in Budapest). The cream was delicately infused with lemon & the mousse type filling contained rum soaked dried fruit. The memory of this cake will stay with me always...
The beer was pretty good too (mmmm......Staropramen!)
Enjoy
Maureen Killip
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| Nicey replies: That was good forward thinking to take the photo of the epic cake before eating it rather than the creamy smear on the plate after you had dispatched it. Wifey and I are big into cakes right now with lots of cake baking taking place at NCOTAASD HQ. Interestingly the last two fruit cakes have both had beer in them, an Ale cake followed by a Guinness cake. We too were minded towards a rum and fruit based job, and even bought a bottle for the purpose although Wifey has seen off quite a bit of it with coke.
In fact our on-going cake activity may well spill out onto the site in some form or another. |
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| Lesley Parker |
As you can see from the photo we have a marital crisis. Hubby's cup is wedged inside my favourite after a dishwasher mishap. Hot and cold water treatments have failed to separate them. Soap didn't work. I suggested WD 40 but that didn't go down well, ( might give the tea a nasty taste).
Any helpful suggestions from the world of tea and biscuit lovers would be welcome. We need help!
Lesley
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| Nicey replies: Well obviously my first thoughts are to simply smash away the troublesome outer mug. However you might want to try immersing the outer mug in boiling water and packing the inner one with ice, the difference in thermal expansion might allow you to separate them. |
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Aimee Jones
Foxs Party Rings Review |
Good morning Nicey, Wifey and YMoS,
In these dark days of hooded tops and youngsters turning their backs on grand institutions like tea and sits down, there is a small glimmer of hope - the UWIC Undergraduate Prospectus
I am a librarian at one of the UWIC sites and was perusing the stacks of new prospectus we had received when my eye fell on the cover of our very own - a huge chocolate digestive (I am using the distinctive ridge pattern as the basis for my assertion) with a healthy bite taken out. Further inspection of the whole document has each School and section represented by a biscuit - the mighty Pink Party Ring is there, the classic Chocolate Bourbon, and even the sometimes miss-understood Pink Wafer.
At least there is one academic institution that realises the importance of biscuits - and I am assuming tea - to the successful development of our future movers and shakers. Maybe NCOTAASD could become an advisor for any future publications to ensure the correct use of biscuits at all times?
Keep up the good work,
ttfn,
Aimee Jones |
| Nicey replies: That all seems very sensible. Wifey undertook a special solo mission to Cardiff a couple of weeks ago, and was very impressed by the the tea, biscuits and homemade cake rota at the place she visited. She also had an lovely sit down at the cafe at the end of the David Morgan arcade. She arrived back with talk of handing out special awards to institutions for outstanding tea breaks. |
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Margret Spencer
Custard Cream Review |
Hello, Nicey:
I ran across your site today while looking for a way to buy Hobnobs over the Internet - WOW, what a tremendous amount of work you've put in! It's great, thanks.
I have sort of a "dumb American" question for you, so please be patient. (I have a slew of English cousins, but most don't have email.) Are "custard creams" the same thing as the "custard tarts" that the character Lionel loved in the TV series "As Time Goes By"? Or is a custard tart more like a small pie crust with a softer/more liquid custard center, as its name might indicate? I've always wondered.
Thanks much. Margaret
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| Nicey replies: This Lionel chap has been mentioned to me before, but I've never seen that programme in the UK. Anyhow you are right, a Custard tart is an individual or 8 inch (usually for the big ones) sweet pastry case filled with egg custard and with nutmeg sprinkled on top. A custard cream is exactly as we have showed in our biscuit review two shortcake biscuits sandwiching some vanilla flavoured soft icing.
Wonder no more. |
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Emily Norris
Bourbon Review |
Dear Nicey,
Great site – keep up the good work as I need your vital information to keep me sane at work.
Last night as I was polishing off a packet of Crawfords Bourbons I suddenly realised how little sugar was stuck on the outside – now, I hadn’t eaten any in a while so it could be my memory playing tricks on me but I’m sure that there used to loads more sugar granules on them before.. On one particular biscuit I counted just 4 or 5 granules.
Perhaps it was just a dud packet? I even checked at the bottom of the packet to see if it had all fallen off before reaching my mouth – alas, no sugar was hiding there..
What has happened to bourbons? Or is it my memory failing?
Love and biscuits,
Emily Norris |
| Nicey replies: You do indeed seem to working in France so I'm assuming you are shipping in the Bourbons yourself. I'm with you on this one, I'm sure that Bourbons used to have a few more sugar crystals on them, not hugely so, but this would have been quite some time ago (10 years maybe). |
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