Pastries and Caked absolutely everywhere

[istheheatingonyet]

Being an oldie I can remember a slice of birthday cake was a great treat.
Now they are everywhere. Since lockdown there are coffee vans every 5 minutes, sausage rolls. At our " farmers market" there is stall after stall selling cake. A recently opened cafe selling cup cakes is absolutely booming.

Big change.

too much temptation for me no wonder i am overweight! when i was young it was mostly things that were harder to make at home like doughnuts, you could make them but a lot of faff. Also savouries like sausage rolls when i was a child a sausage roll was a treat for me to eat while mum was shopping with granny.
i must admit i prefer home made none of that bitter tang of the preserves the after taste.
yes there were boxed cakes but they were very rare in our house if ever. must admit i cannot remember mum buying them but Sunday while the roast was cooking she did enough cake for the week. must have been an exhausting life! funnily enough whether it was sponge small cakes or fruit cake on a Friday the cake in my lunchbox was still lovely and fresh but no preservative in it
our local shop made a big hoo ha about these doughnuts they were going to be selling. to me a doughnut is a deep fried item or it is traditionally with a sort of batter basis. these were vile. they were ring yes but they were a stodgy dough sort of consistency and then had so much stuff on it icing nutella biscuits bleeuk beyond sickly they were horrible and robbed me of nearly £4 for each one! you can get a bag of jam doughnuts from a local shop for less than £2!

Didn't you have homemade cakes OP? My granny was always baking. Butterfly cakes were my favourite.

@ErrolTheDragonI remember High Tea. It was some sort of savoury eg eggs which was just a tedious precursor to home made cake. Always home made.
My Mum used to talk about " a wee bit of cake" or a " wee bit of fruit cake"
It was a treat.
There were no cafes or coffee shops laden with sweet stuff, no vans selling sweet stuff and no markets with cakes.
Most stuff was home made. Bought cake was seen as a stand in " in case somebody called round"
I see family members consuming brownies, huge slabs of cake, coffee with syrup and so on.
Different times that's all.

er, hang on now, how long ago are we talking? I distinctly remember, growing up in the peak 'cream cakes! Naughty but niiiiiiice' 70s and 80s, there being two different bakeries in our village, both doing roaring trades in slabs of coffee and walnut sponge/hundreds and thousands sponge, cream meringues, eclairs, etc. And there were loads of cafes in the nearby town each with their own 'thing', whether that was strawberry tarts (shortcrust base, confectioner's cream, strawberry, thick strawberry glaze) or custard tarts, coffee puffs, Japonaises, vanilla custard slices, etc, in addition to various bakeries, with bread down one side of the counter and sticky delights down the other.

I think what's different now is that 'cupcakes' and brownies have overtaken all the old-fashioned, homegrown calorie bombs. Apart from in Scotland, though, where it's still possible to buy caramel tarts so sweet you can feel your fillings vibrate.

in our area there’s way less cake opportunities than there were especially since Covid and not even the coffee van at Parkrun anymore, no free coffee and cake in John Lewis, I’d love more non supermarket cake opportunities 🤷🏽‍♀️ if someone could just send me a slab of cake too make it lemony coz then I can eat more than chocolate etc I’ll join @Ficklebrickslol I’ve just eaten a wedge of cheese if anyone’s interested in some?

Love a cake.

Europe has always been full of cafes with loads of cake on offer

The cafe culture has been going for decades over there

We had a strong pub culture here at lunchtime

We've now moved away from the daytime pub culture to a cafe culture

I remember as a child going into cafes in Germany for instance and my jaw hitting the floor with the vast array of cakes on offer.

It's somewhere nice to go and hang out

Also I can't cook decent cake or pastries so buying some at a farmers market as opposed to the dreadful ones in supermarkets is a win for an occasional treat ir weekly treat for others

Strange comment.

an occasional treat ir weekly treat for others

Reckon that might be my point ( if indeed there is one other than mulling over changes)

People have more disposable income now than they did when we were nippers.

I've never heard of a Victoria Sponge with buttercream, only fresh whipped double cream.

Where? I need some! My house is currently cakeless. 😜

God yes. Here's a cake related memory.....my Granny whispering about " the cake" and my mother being put out that the drama of a bought birthday cake was spoilt.

I'll stop now!

to @Ficklebricks your comment is strange. Perhaps my blood sugar is low

Growing up the 2 local bakeries sold cake and one had tables so you could have a coffee and cake. If you went to the shopping centre \john Lewis had a cafe that did afternoon tea - cake sandwiches and proper table cloths and napkins. Coming home from church on Sunday we'd stop to buy fresh welshcakes still hot from the oven.

Also pretty well everyone's mother baked once a week usually a big square cake that lasted all week. As we had a cooked lunch at school our tea was often a sandwich with a slice cake and a glass of milk. Homemade basic jam sandwich was cheaper each night than yoghurt so slice of cake was basic and a pot of Ski (anyone remember those?) was a treat.

There's always been bakeries and tea shops selling cakes. I think it's the size of the cakes that's more the issue.

I'd never seen a cake that included more than 2 layers of sponge until recent years. The icing and decorations on the top were generally quite simple. Nice but not lavish. Now you get cakes like towers that have thick icing and are decorated with sweets, biscuits, chocolate bars etc.

Cake also used to be an occasional treat. Not an everyday item. No wonder there's an obesity problem.

Absolute nonsense. There's far less cake around, if anything. Hardly any neighbourhood bakers anymore and I dont know anyone who bakes every week to fill the tins for the week ahead.

There's too much bloody buttercream. It's plastered on and in everything.

I do like a plain cake, with real butter and eggs and sugar. Apple cake, Victoria sponge with fresh cream, lemon drizzle, orange cake drool.

Ive never liked cake so no problem for me.
Ive not eaten chocolate for 3 year dont miss either.

I must have been surrounded by bakers as a child because cake featured a lot when I was young and growing up in the 60's and 70's. I also recall going to the bakers on a Saturday evening to buy rolls and cakes from round the back as they were being made.

Let me help you out.

Mumsnet is well known for threads discussing how greedy all the fatties are, where people compete to be the most pure and skinny in the thread. People can't help but show off how little they enjoy food, how they never even think about food, or how they can resist temptation so much more than any other mumsnetter.

It makes for a very entertaining read.☕
☕

We’ve lost sight of what size cake should be 😆😆

But I never said anything about skinnies or fatties?

It was about availability and size. A societal change ( or not) apparently!

I think people have swapped the ciggies for cake!

Also the population has really increased so higher cake demand.

Totally agree, hate buttercream, too sickly. I love all the same cakes you mention!