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Your e-Mails

Hiromi Miura	Dear Nicey,Wifey and YMOS On Wednesday afternoon, my husband and I came back to Korea after staying for three nights and four days in our motherland, Japan. Sad to say, when we arrived at Haneda Airport(Tokyo), there was no lady with a green tea trolley to greet us, but Tokyo was so beautiful because the lovely pink-coloured cherry blossoms were in full bloom. In Tokyo, my husband seemed to be busy visiting several offices on business. As for me, I was busy dropping by corner shops enjoying biscuit hunting, as you guess. And we flew back to Korea with a lot of biscuits I had gained in Tokyo, including a box of twenty "Black Thunder" biscuits, which are one of my favourite Japanese biscuits. Well, I am a lady who love inexpensive,mass-produced biscuits that are available at corner shops and common supermarkets. However, in remembrance of our brief retro life in Tokyo, I ventured to try to buy four extravagant biscuits at WEST shop. The WEST shop is a confectioner well-known for its even finer and high end biscuits in Japan. Actually, even a single biscuit cost me at 168JPY (about 0.82GBP / 1.64USD). Interestingly, the confectioner calls its biscuits "Dry Cake", while it calls its fresh cakes (such as cheesecake, sponge cake covered with whipped cream and cream puff) just "Cake". And it is fact that those 4 "Dry Cake" biscuits I bought were drier than Tunnock teacake and Jaffa Cake. Anyway, I am very happy that I was able to get such gems of biscuits as well as common biscuits in Japan. By the way, what lets me down is that I was not able to discover a gem of contemporary literature: Japanese version of NCOTAASD book in Japan. It seemed to me that your Japanese book has not been released in Japan, yet. I do hope I will get it next time we fly to Japan. Sincerely, Hiromi Miura (Seoul Korea)
	Nicey replies: Hello Hiromi, It sounds like you had a lovely time back in Tokyo, even if you didn't get your cup of green tea at the airport.. Of course the main reason for our book being published in Japanese is so that you can read it. I've pointed this out at length to all concerned. Fingers crossed that you'll find it next time. We have cherry trees all along our road, which have just began to blossom too. Each year they produce masses of black cherries most of which are eaten by birds or fall on to the road. This year Wifey plans to ask permission to grab a few pounds of them and turn them into her new found best drink ever, Cherry flavoured Vodka. NCOTAASD ISP Dr Borrill did this with his cherries and worked very well indeed.
Hiromi Miura	Dear Nicey,Wifey and YMOS It seems to me that "whether biscuit or cake" is still arguable topic in the U.K. And I wonder if the "Biscuit-cake" is popular in many other countries outside Japan. The "Biscuit-cake" is a familiar as a simple, easy, safe but delicious "home-made" cake suitable for beginners in Japan. The cake doesn't need the oven. I'm sorry if you have already known , but I would like to try to introduce the "Biscuit cake", here. (INGREDIENT) * Rich tea/Marie type biscuits * whipped cream added sugar ( Luckily,ready-made whipped cream is available at my local E-mart in Korea) * strong brewed coffee (or milk), room temperature (DIRECTIONS) #1 Dunk the both faces of a biscuit lightly in coffee (or milk). (Be careful not to make it too moist, please!) #2 Spread some whipped cream on top of the biscuit. #3 Continue piling with slightly moist biscuit and whipped cream alternately as much as you like, finishing with the biscuit. #4 Fill the gap between biscuits and spread on top with cream, stylishly. (If you prefer a "low-calorie" cake, you can skip #4.) #5 Cover the yummy tower with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least three hours until the biscuits successfully change into a soft moist texture like a sponge cake thanks to the whipped cream. #6 Adorn with your favourite fruit before serving. If you create your cake longer like a log and lay it and then spread cream all over it, I think that your cake can be something like a Buche de Noel. To tell the truth, I have never baked even home-made biscuits and I know that my home-made "biscuit-cake" is extremely out of touch with elegance. However, it was enjoyable for me to fix this cake. I hope many people will enjoy making your own "Biscuit-cake". By the way, as much as we the Japanese call the Biscuit-cake "cake", some people outside Japan may consider it "biscuit". How do you feel about that, Nicey? Cordially, Hiromi Miura (seoul Korea)
	Nicey replies: Dear Hiromi, I think that biscuits can be ingredients in cakes, as the digestive biscuit and ginger nut often form the base for Cheesecakes. So biscuits are quite prepared for this treatment. I don't think it can go the other way though. Perhaps the closest is the sponge fingers that get used in desserts which are very dry and brittle which have almost entered a state where by they could be used as biscuits. Even so that is no the same thing as smashing them up or treating them with a solution that would turn them into biscuits. Perhaps some of the people outside of Japan should think about that, although you might have to do the translation again. P.S. I like the strawberry on top, very tempting.