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Your e-Mails

Keith O'Kane	Dear Nicey and the wife, I read with interest Jenny Hall's letter expressing her confusion over the two types of snowball. As a young child, I spent time in both Ireland and England and was introduced to both types of snowball.  The Irish version was like the Scottish snowball described by Jenny, consisting of two hemispheres of a dry, crumbly cake sandwiched together with jam and covered with coconut.  These were extremely difficult to eat, being too big to fit into a child-sized mouth and too crumbly to attempt without the aid of a plate.  This was very definitely a cake. The English version, as I recall, consisted of a mound of soft, slightly chewy mallow, coated in milk chocolate and covered with the obligatory coconut.  This version contained no biscuit and therefore falls outside the biscuit category.  I would also hesitate to call it a cake since it contained no cake-like substance. There was a third type of snowball which I encountered later in life and this may be the one which you described.  It consisted of a soft biscuit base topped with a mound of mallow which, if memory serves, was half pink and half white.  The mallow was topped with coconut and the biscuit base coated in chocolate. As for determining the difference between a cake and a biscuit, my local supermarket has separate isles for cakes and biscuits.  Anything which can be found in the biscuit isle (including Tunnocks tea cakes) is a biscuit. Keith O'Kane
	Nicey replies: Morning Kieth, Good pragmatic approach there. Of course when they rearrange the aisles ones entire belief system can come crashing down around ones ears.
Mark Gott	Hello again, when I worked in catering, one of my regulars, a young but old-money tweedy kind of gent, asked me for his toast to be done on one side, 'because that was the proper way to do it'. Little did he know, the toast-making machine did one side at a time, so I could present him with said toast with an air of smug satisfaction. He was a pleasant fellow, not for him the toast made from bread aged in a cupboard, that would explode into a million pieces at the first application of a butter-knife! Mark 'nothing too much trouble' Gott.
	Nicey replies: He didn't have a faintly Geordie accent did he?
Alison Debenham	Dear Nicey and co I was in a bit of a panic having read the article about the silver balls, but having rushed to my cooking cupboard, am relieved to find that I have been using "Rainbow Pearls" (pink, green, blue and silver balls) from Fiddes Panne Cake Decorations, and they contain "sugar, wheat starch, arabic gum, colours (E100, E124, E133, E174)", so I think that's OK.  Was a bit worried about all the children I might have accidentally poisoned, especially since The Husband is a Solicitor. Keep up the good investigative journalism! Best wishes to all Alison
	Nicey replies: Yes that is reassuring except that E174 is Silver, the rest are all fairly standard. E100 Curcumin Naturally occurring orange/yellow colour, extracted from the spice turmeric E124 Ponceau 4R A synthetic coal tar dye, red in colour E133 Brilliant Blue A synthetic coal tar dye, blue in colour. Often mixed with E102 to make green.
Gail	I was searching for the name of those silver balls for Tim and found this article.  I don't know if they would have the same name in the UK or be as "toxic" Regards, Gail
	Nicey replies: Right I think we'll be giving those a miss from here on in.
Chris Rayment	I believe they’re called dragees, well they were called that when my mum put them on birthday cakes. By the way, I agree with your classification of cakes with buttercream and cake bits on top as butterfly cakes. They sell them in Gateway in packs of eight. YUM, YUM.
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