NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown.com
Mission Statement
About
About our book

Buy our book as
Classy Hardback

Cuddly Paperback
Mailing list
Newsletters
Nice NEWS
14/10/2008
Biscuit of the week
Club Milk
Your feedback
Pauline Wilson
Search feedback
The Wife says
14/12/2007
Fig Fest
Biscuit quiz
Your Reviews
Missing in action
What the polls said
Prawnzilla
Giant Bee
Underpant toast
Apocalypse Bunny
Giant Marmots
The Duck
We are hosted by Precedence Technologies Internet Services
In Association with Amazon.co.uk
HomeForCakeTeaAndBiscuits

The stuff from before on NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown ...

<< Newer stuff | Older stuff >>

Biscuit breakthrough is spreading


Shocking but true!
The pace of technological breakthrough remains unabated and hot on the heels of the iPhone and that stuff you can spray round your house to get rid of the smell of dogs and mackerel comes spreadable biscuits. If any of you have been feeling an unfulfilled void gnawing at you every time you go the cupboard to get something to spread on your toast, because none of it tastes like those little continental biscuits you sometimes get given with your coffee when on holiday in France then your anguish is at an end.

A couple of years back when asked to take part in a Channel 4 program about the KitKat when it was at the peak of its derivative product madness, I was asked to speculate what they might do with it next. On the spur of the moment I said 'some kind of spread that you could put on your toast'. I was fairly pleased with that, but I really honestly didn't think that some crazed biscuit doctors would ever make this leap. If they did I was also mainly expecting it to be in a squirty tube a bit like Primula Cheese spread and not a really quite big jar.

Belgian biscuit baker Lotus well known for their Caramalised Biscuits and Speculoos has found a way turning biscuits into a spread. This seems to be grinding them up with some vegetable oil, sugar and emulsifier much in the way peanuts might find themselves ending up in peanut butter. The upshot of this is that it tastes almost exactly like Speculoos, just is peanut butter tastes just like peanuts.

Beyond breakfast I can see this new technology being put use in two important areas. The first as new form of biscuit adhesive for making advanced types of birthday cakes. In fact I reckon you could pull off a half decent Jabba the Hut's sail barge sticking on the window shutters with a jar of this stuff. The second and perhaps more obvious use is in the manned exploration of Mars. Biscuit crumbs in zero G during the 3 year round trip could prove quite a problem scuppering the no doubt endless opportunities for a nice float around and a cup of tea presented by 18 months in space. Lumps of this should be much better behaved in space. Demand in Belgium for the product has been overwhelming, and if there is any of it spare Lotus UK will try and bring it to our supermarkets.

Boreda blant

As my Welsh teacher used to say. Of course I had no idea what she was going on about as my family were all from Essex. Yesterday being St David's day we decided to give Sue Northcotts traditional handed down Welsh Cake recipe a go, and here are the results, with supporting daffodil and leek.


Made with currants, and butter again
Having been raised in Wales, although being English, I really did appreciate the celebration of the Welsh patron saint's day, as it was basically a jolly. In primary school the girls would come dressed in traditional welsh dress, being a long skirt knitted shawl over their shoulders and mad Welsh hat, think Witches hat with the point chopped off. They would also have a daffodil pinned to them.

The boys too came in traditional welsh dress, which was possibly what ever you normally wear with a leek pinned to you. Unlike the Prince of Wales's leek yesterday when he was on the telly, a small delicate affair, most were full size vegetables requiring a couple of safety pins and a bit of string to secure them to the child. Many boys would start eating their leek raw before morning break giving them an authentic welsh dragon breath by lunch time. Some of the boys who had the more feminine daffodils attached to them would eat them too in displays of male pride/stupidity.

By far and away the best thing about St David's day was that it was half day at school. Even now well in to my forties I find that a March 1st that falls on a weekend seems like lost opportunity. I feel that somehow I've missed out on my afternoon off. It was several years into my working life before I could fully stop my self going home at lunch time on St David's day.

Somebody somewhere thinks you would like a cake

Well its February 14th and the romantic ones amongst us are no doubt planning something wonderful for their special love tonight. Here at NCOTAASD HQ the YMOS and myself see this as a perfect opportunity to bake some cakes whilst Wifey is out earning a crust. It may appear that this is merely a way of circumventing my diet, but it passes as romance here - right!


Made with Love.. and butter and quite a lot of sugar too
<< Newer stuff | Older stuff >>