Ready, Steady, Bake!

“Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up…”

 –  Julius Caesar

To overstate the obvious, Britain is baking mad. Although it has always been a nation of bakers, Britain is now a nation that is baking obsessed! The British baking industry is worth more than £3.4 billion, and the effect is evident in the high street. Marks & Spencer have reported sales increases of up to 20% for baking ingredients, particularly in specialist sugars and cake decorating equipment. At John Lewis, purchases of cake tins and muffin trays have increased by 15%, while sales in vintage-style cake tins and stands have more than doubled.

This chain of events is due largely to the phenomenal success of the BBC’s baking competition show, “The Great British Bake Off”.  Each week, some four million plus viewers tune in to watch the dynamic duo of Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood critique the calibre of contestants' cupcakes and croquembouche. But, this you know – unless of course you have been living on the planet Mars for the past four years!

What you may not know is that there was a time in Britain when baking could land you in prison! In 1664, Olivier Cromwell’s Puritans banned Christmas pudding, along with mince pies and a whole host of other festive holiday foods (and beverages, church services, and…!). The humble Christmas pudding became the focus of Puritan attack on the “lewd” and “debauched” festive celebrations that were "unfit for God-fearing people". Anyone caught making a fruit-studded, brandy soaked dessert was carted off and punished severely.

King George I (1714-1727) reestablished the custom of serving it as part of the royal holiday feast in 1714. That is, despite objections voiced by the Quakers, who regarded Christmas pudding as "the invention of the scarlet whore of Babylon". We have that great guardian of Victorian family values, Prince Albert, to thank for returning the lowly and much-maligned Christmas pudding, much as we know it today, back on to the holiday map.

Recently, I discovered another great, British, Christmas Pudding tradition that has come down to us from the time of Albert and Victoria: “Stir-Up Sunday”. Stir-up Sunday is the last Sunday before the season of Advent. (This year’s date is 23 November.) The term “Stir-Up Sunday” comes from the opening words of the Collect for the day (the "The Twenty-Fifth Sunday After Trinity", or, the fifth Sunday before Christmas) in the Book of Common Prayer:

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

This exhortation was apparently a timely reminder to the ladies of the congregation of their need to bring forth their plenteous fruits (suet and brandy) and to get stirring! What a wonderful way to enter into the spirit of the season of Advent – a time of expectant waiting and preparation before the festivities of Christmas and the Nativity.

Traditionally, Stir-Up Sunday was a family affair, with parents and children gathering in the kitchen to make the Christmas pudding together, every member of the family taking a turn stirring the bowl, whilst uttering a wish. The puds and wishes were then carefully wrapped in brandy soaked cloths to mellow over the coming weeks until Christmas Day.

It is a sad truth, thanks to the ease, convenience and quality of store-bought Christmas puddings, that two-thirds of British children have never experienced stirring or making a Christmas pudding.

Getting everyone huddled in the kitchen for Stir-Up Sunday is a Victorian fantasy, to be sure. But, one well worth reviving, I think, particularly, in the midst of our avid Baking madness.

                                                                                  ***** 

Prince Albert's Christmas Pudding

For 8 helpings: 1 Ib prunes; 1 pt water; 1 lemon; 1 oz Barbados sugar; butter for greasing; 2 large eggs; 4 oz butter; 4 oz soft light brown sugar; pinch of salt; 4 oz soft wholemeal breadcrumbs; 1 oz semolina; brandy butter (Guard Sauce) made with 3 oz butter; 4 oz icing sugar and 1 oz ground almonds.

Steep the prunes in the water overnight. Grate the rind of half the lemon and pare the rest. Squeeze the juice. Simmer the prunes with the water, pared rind, juice, and Barbados sugar until soft. Drain. Cut the fruit in half and remove the stones. Crease the inside of a 2 pint pudding basin thickly with butter. Press enough prunes into the fat, cut side down, to line the basin completely. Shred any prunes left over. Separate the eggs.

Beat the 4 oz fat and soft brown sugar until creamy, and beat in the egg yolks and salt. Mix in the grated rind, breadcrumbs, semolina and any shredded prunes. Whisk the egg whites until they hold firm peaks and fold them into the mixture. Turn into the basin, cover tightly with greased foil and steam for 2 1/2-3 hours.

Firm in the basin for 6 minutes, then turn on to a warmed serving dish. Serve with chilled brandy butter and whipped cream. Note: If you wish, make the steeping liquid of the prunes into a sauce with 1 teaspoon arrowroot and 1 tablespoon brandy to each 1/2 pt liquid.

Advent

I'll admit it. I'm a softie, and I love this advert!

How cute are these?

Less than a month until the Royal Wedding, and good news! 
After morning prayers today, someone offered me some Union Jack napkins and Union Jack bunting for my Royal Wedding Street Party! Hurrah, hurrah!
All I need now are these ...
Aren't they cute?!

Lovely bone china mugs from John Lewis. This one's my favourite!

This one's nice too!

March madness and Magic Knickers

It has been a day of deliveries!

First a special delivery from California, a pair of Vera Wang wedding shoes that I bought in a fit of madness off eBay. Thankfully, in the midst of my insanity I was shrewd. I choose the “Make me an Offer” option, and offered the seller the ridiculous and insulting price of $100. USD for a pair of brand new, gorgeous Vera Wang shoes!

After she stopped laughing, the seller wrote back, and suggested a compromise at $300. USD.  I laughed, and wrote: “$125. USD.” She wrote back and said, “$170. USD,” and with that, we were done. A bargain.

I don’t how or when I actually gave into to the “designer shoe temptation,” and I must confess some extreme disappointment with myself, and a wee sense of failure on my part. The shoes, for all the hoopla they inspire are actually, well, quite ordinary-looking, plain and uncomfortable. Much of a muchness, I think. Expensive lesson learned. 

Let’s hope I have more success with the second parcel of the day, fresh from John Lewis, my new favo(u)rite shop. The DEB has been dying to get me over to John Lewis in Solihull for weeks, and I don’t really know why I have resisted going.

We went over to Solihull on Sunday afternoon, after a late brunch, and we had a splendid day out browsing through John Lewis, followed by dinner and a movie. (I never managed to make that roast on Sunday, but that’s another story.)

So, John Lewis. Imagine all that is bright and beautiful about Target, Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, and Macy’s, take away the hordes of tourists and other spatial-challenged shoppers, and you have the English wonder that is John Lewis.

The DEB and I decided to have our Gift Registry at John Lewis, and I was happy enough to do the hunting and gathering online via www.johnlewis.com, but what an adventure I would have missed!

John Lewis has everything, and they are all about Customer Service. Yesterday, I began to panic about my first fitting at Eternal Bride in Warwick. Yes, it was meant to happen the first week of March, but, I chickened out and rescheduled to give myself more of a chance to tone up/get fit.

But, now, I’m ready, thanks to Trinny and Susannah! At John Lewis.com I discovered “Magic Knickers” created by none other than the Trinny & Susannah of “What Not to Wear" fame. (I used to love their show when it was BBC America.) I order them straightaway yesterday, and they were delivered to my doorstep in under 24 hours!

In this cute little box, with the ever-comic duo, T&S, camping it up on the cover, there is a device that promises to be the feminine fashion equivalent of Harry Potter’s “cloak of invisibility.” My new “Magic Tummy Flattener Thong” promises to make me look as if I have dropped a full dress size. We shall see. Lord knows, I deserve to look that good. I have worked hard enough!

Trinny & Susannah’s “Magic Knickers” will set you back more than a bob or two, a hefty £30. GBP to be exact, but the claim is that the results are worth it. For the more frugal, Marks and Spencer have created a rival product, rather unimaginatively called “Magic Pants.” (Rough about half the price of T&S’s brand.)  Who doesn’t deserve a bit of magic?

Speaking of knickers, pants, and the like, reminds me of the many joys and woes of “the common language” Yanks and Brits supposedly share. 

May I confess, here and now, that there are times, within full-length conversations that I have no idea what anyone is saying to me? That secretly, I have developed a very clever and highly-effective trick to navigate such moments: I smile, nod, laugh a little, and throw in an occasional “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Then, as the Brits say, “Bob’s your uncle!” and no one has a clue, that I haven’t a clue as to what has just transpired. One must learn, however, to use this little trick judiciously, and where possible to avoid using the breathy laugh, “Yes, it is, isn’t it” response when someone has just informed you that their Granny has died.

Another linguistic “sticky wicket” for me has been asking for things. For example, for New Year’s Eve, the DEB and I attended a formal soiree, for which I had the most luscious gown to wear. (I have waxed lyrical about this dress in an earlier post, wherein I dubbed it “the Rita Hayworth dress”.) There was no way on earth I could wear this dress, low cut as it was, without what we Americans call “pasties.”

Pasties, pronounced in a way similar to how one would say “toothpaste,” are adhesive tabs applied to cover your nipples, in place of a bra. I searched high and low for “pasties” – no one had any idea what I was talking about. In one shop they looked at me as if I were quite, quite mad. Then, it dawned on me: same spelling, different pronunciation, entirely different word...

Pasties (pronounced like the word "past"): filled pastry cases, commonly associated with Cornwall, United Kingdom, made by placing the filling on a flat pastry shape, usually a circle, and folding it to wrap the filling, crimping the edge to form a seal.

A simple lesson to learn: In Britain, the devices that one uses to cover one’s nipples in lieu of not wearing a bra, are called, quite simply…“Nipple Covers.” Genius.

Slowly but surely one gets to grips with such fine tunings of the English language, and hopefully, it will become second nature that the First Floor is the Ground Floor, and that “Band-aids” are “Plasters.”

To be sure, the phenomenon works both ways. A while ago, the DEB & I had a meal with a fellow American and her British beau. At some point during the course of that very jovial evening, she and I revealed and shared a kinship with “Wednesday Addams”. She and I laughed hysterically. Our two Brit Boys smiled adoringly, and I think one of them may even have said something that sounded a little like, “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” We tried explain the significance, but really, it’s just one of those things.

A few days later, while out walking our beloved Lucy around a dark, grey, wet and rainy Barford, the DEB turned to me, and said: “Bit of a Tuesday Addams day today, isn’t it?”