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curiouswombatI've just had one of those moments when you realise you've turned into your own mother.
I was baking some gingerbread, for a cake stall at church in aid of the Philippines Appeal, and I looked at the tins I was using. They are very tatty and rusted. This isn't a problem, as I line them. But I suddenly thought how very old they looked - just as I remember my mother using very old cake tins when I was younger. And I realised that these ones I use regularly are ones I bought about... um... 30 years ago.
My mum's 'very old tins' were probably not that old.
Here is a picture of the two gingerbreads - as you can see, the cake didn't come into contact with the elderly tins!
I was baking some gingerbread, for a cake stall at church in aid of the Philippines Appeal, and I looked at the tins I was using. They are very tatty and rusted. This isn't a problem, as I line them. But I suddenly thought how very old they looked - just as I remember my mother using very old cake tins when I was younger. And I realised that these ones I use regularly are ones I bought about... um... 30 years ago.
My mum's 'very old tins' were probably not that old.
Here is a picture of the two gingerbreads - as you can see, the cake didn't come into contact with the elderly tins!
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Date: 09/12/2013 10:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 09/12/2013 10:25 pm (UTC)But I bet my daughter thinks my tins are very tatty! I must ask her sometime.
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Date: 09/12/2013 10:15 pm (UTC)Oh yes. More and more often. It's frightening!
Mmmmm, gingerbread!
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Date: 09/12/2013 10:26 pm (UTC)The gingerbread makes the house smell lovely.
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Date: 09/12/2013 10:18 pm (UTC)That gingerbread looks very yummy - is making me hungry in fact! Sadly my birthday cake's all eaten up...
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Date: 09/12/2013 10:29 pm (UTC)Gingerbread is one of the things I make regularly for things like this because it is so easy, requires little effort and generates little washing up! Pity I can't e-mail you one, really.
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Date: 09/12/2013 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 09/12/2013 10:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 09/12/2013 10:41 pm (UTC)What kind of gingerbread is this? I'm searching since ages for a soft, cake-formed gingerbread we once bought somewhere - it was Swedish, if I remember correctly, but it could be easily something similar, and I haven't found anything in this direction so far.
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Date: 09/12/2013 11:31 pm (UTC)It is an everyday cake because it is so easy to make - would you like the recipe?
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Date: 09/12/2013 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 10/12/2013 12:08 am (UTC)I have a pepper cake recipe too, should you want it.
However - this is a very traditional British gingerbread recipe. It is enough to fill a large tin usually used to cook the Sunday roast - so it is the amount that made both of those cakes in the picture - but it is easy to half it to just make one.
As it is an old recipe it is in ounces...
8 oz butter or margarine
8 oz soft brown sugar
8 oz golden syrup, or treacle for a darker gingerbread
12 oz plain flour
2 rounded dessert spoons ground ginger
3 rounded teaspoons cinnamon
2 beaten eggs
1/2 pint milk
2 rounded teaspoons bicarbonate of soda.
Melt butter, sugar and syrup/treacle together. (I do it in a big plastic bowl in the microwave.)
Stir in the flour and spices, then the eggs.
Warm milk to tepid, stir the bicarb into it, and then stir it into the main mixture.
It will be very runny, don't panic!
Pour into lined roasting tin, or two loaf tins (as in my picture) and bake at 140C(fan oven - 160C if not a fan oven) for an 75 -90 minutes - it should be firm and springy when it is cooked.
The ones in the picture were made with syrup - treacle is actually more traditional - and darker. Also, as it was a standard cake for working families to put into the 'lunch box', it works just as well with white sugar - but white sugar and syrup would give a paler cake.
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Date: 10/12/2013 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 10/12/2013 08:36 am (UTC)If you want to pretty up plain gingerbread for Christmas events, a little water icing (the sort where you just add water to the icing sugar/confectioners sugar) drizzled over the top and then a handful of chopped crystallised ginger looks good, or the icing and some sort of edible gold decorations.
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Date: 09/12/2013 11:54 pm (UTC):)
(And I also glimpse my mother in thje mirror very often!)
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Date: 10/12/2013 12:12 am (UTC)The funniest thing was the realisation that I used to think 'Oh, how can Mum use those rusting tins?' and thought it was because we couldn't afford new ones. And now... well, I could easily afford new ones but I'm still using the old ones!
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Date: 10/12/2013 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 10/12/2013 08:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 10/12/2013 12:53 am (UTC)I figure as long as I don't become my mom when I shop I'm okay.
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Date: 10/12/2013 08:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 10/12/2013 01:46 am (UTC)I hear you on the baking tins. I make bread in glass loaf pans, but my cake pans sound a lot like yours!
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Date: 10/12/2013 01:10 pm (UTC)Enjoy your gingerbread!
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Date: 10/12/2013 04:32 am (UTC)I tend to see my grandmother, rather than my mother in the mirror sometimes!
Huggs,
Lynda
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Date: 10/12/2013 01:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 10/12/2013 07:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 10/12/2013 01:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 10/12/2013 03:31 pm (UTC)Over the years I've accumulated some of my own which look rather "worn-in" now :-)
Gingerbread has such a lovely smell......
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Date: 10/12/2013 06:22 pm (UTC)I think the moment of realisation was when it occurred to me that I have done that.
And yes - I love the smell of gingerbread.
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Date: 10/12/2013 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 10/12/2013 06:26 pm (UTC)But I actually got a lot of pleasure out of buying these tins and pans new for myself - it is so funny that they are now old and tatty!
What I do have passed down are the recipes, and the memories of things cooking.
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Date: 10/12/2013 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 10/12/2013 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 10/12/2013 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 10/12/2013 06:16 pm (UTC)I have some lovely bun tins which were my grans and which pattern the bases of the buns with a shell pattern..the amount of time I spend wire wooling and greasing those tins before and after use is crazy... I'm going to try lining them!
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Date: 10/12/2013 06:29 pm (UTC)I think Mum must still have them unless she's thrown them out; she is a cook by profession and so not sentimental about her equipment!
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Date: 11/12/2013 11:51 pm (UTC)Mind you, this is from someone who is middle aged and still using her grandmother's wine glasses.
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Date: 12/12/2013 08:29 am (UTC)