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Your e-Mails

Alison Debenham Caxton Pink'n'Whites Review	Hello again Nicey and Staff Yes, I saw the article about Eccles Cakes.  Unfortunately, we have TWO of the said Greggs stores here in Sunny St Albans, on opposite sides of the main shopping street.  They are the sort of cake/sandwich shop that my mother would have pronounced as "selling septic cakes" (she meant the sort filled with that rather nasty artificial cream).   They are cheap and not very cheerful.  They even sell something called "Tottenham cake", which as a Spurs family, interested us. I suppose it's to compete with Chelsea Buns, but since it's just a square of plain sponge with a lurid sickly pink icing, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the football club.  When I asked a member of staff why they were so-called, they mumbled "dunno", so I'm none the wiser. Maybe we should arrange a campaign to Save the Eccles Cake, starting right now! Best wishes to all.  Must go now, to put on the kettle for the Return Home from School Cup of Tea and Sit Down (with Caxtons Pink and White Wafers) of the younger daughter. Alison
Naomi Archer	Hello Nicey and Wifey, Just thought I'd drop you a line to let you know about the excellent tea, cakes and sitting down that we had today at work as part of the Macmillan fundraising effort.  Some hard-working employees of Devon County Council were up late last night, baking all kinds of delicious cakes, buns, and fairy cakes (all with wings stuck in the butter icing on top - ref earlier debates on your site), and the resulting tea, cake and sit-down fest has been a wonder to behold.  Don't worry, council tax payers, we made sure all the school buses and meals on wheels were going OK before we began the sitting down.  All the best, Naomi Archer
	Nicey replies: Very good. We just back from our local one, which had a lovely spread too. Mind you my homemade ginger nuts were perilously close to a plate of pink wafers.
Rob Byatt	Dear Nicey and Wifey, We've just come back from a wet week in the lake district. One of the highlights of each day was popping into local establishments for teas or lunches. It was noted by us that on the menu in several of these places, as well as having a headed section for cakes, there were headed sections for tray-bakes which included such treats as tiffin, fruit flapjacks and caramel slices. Obviously this took on great significance to us, especially as we couldn't get out and about much due to the inclement weather and a particularly young new member of staff. Maybe if the cult of the tray bake continues to rise, the old Venn diagram will have to be updated. Keep up the good work, Rob Byatt
	Nicey replies: Oh yes the old Venn diagram is very dated now. There is a splendid big new one in our book but I fear that its too late now to amend it with this new theory of slices. Still it proves that this is a vital and expanding field of knowledge.
Mrs Liveinabin	Hi again. I used to sell kettles after I was made redundant from selling tea by Whittards. The best kettle then was the phillips pirouette. It's one of those round metal ones but is the only one to have the correct distance between the handle and spout so not to scold your hand. It has been discontinued for three years or so but contains the two vital things to look for in a kettle, a concealed element and a scale filter. As for the recipe from Mr Two Lunches. Cake I say. It has too much butter to be a biscuit. I like the mugs. TTFN Mrs Liveinabin
	Nicey replies: Hoorah! for being the first to christen the fabulous new Kettle icon.
Tricia Dearborn	The item Karl 'Two Lunches' Hughes describes is clearly what is known in Australia as a 'slice'. I'd wondered about the lack of representation of slice on this site before, and come to the conclusion that it must exist only in Australia - though the Kiwi 'tray bake' sounds like the same thing. Slice was very popular when I was growing up (the 70s). It can be made from a selection of diverse ingredients mixed and pressed into a tray (and often iced), or from a biscuit recipe cooked in a tray (and often subsequently iced). Sometimed slices are fancy three-layer creations, eg caramel slice (shortbread base, a thick layer of caramel, layer of actual chocolate on top) or peppermint slice (shortbread or chocolate biscuit base, peppermint filling, chocolate layer), or raspberry coconut slice (very crumbly delicious base, raspberry jam, sticky coconut topping). And there are very delicious plainer versions like chocolate slice (chocolate biscuit base, chocolate icing, coconut sprinkled on top) and ginger slice (ginger shortbready biscuit base, plus ginger icing that you cook in a saucepan and which has the unusual quality of making your mouth feel cool when you eat it).   Slice is always made in a shallow, often rectangular tray (a slice tray). You don't see it as often as you used to, though you can often still buy it in cafes and old-fashioned cake shops. Needless to say, a good accompaniment to tea, though not ideal for dunking. Tricia Sydney, Australia
	Nicey replies: I was going to say 'slice' too but then I didn't. I feel this information is probably of immense importance in helping finally working out phylogeny of such items as flapjack. I'm actually quite excited.
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