Cookery blasts from the past...

[deaconblue]

I've just made rock cakes with the dc- the first baking I ever did way back in about 1978, turns out they were dh's first cooking experience too. What are your first memories of cooking/baking?

Coconut ice, peppermint creams, marzipan fruits, queen cakes, victoria sponge, cornflake cakes, fab cake that was on "Why Don't You" basically gingernuts dipped in oj then sandwiched together with whipped cream and chilled for a couple of hours...
using a hairpin to get the seeds out of grapes for fruit salad. Kind of icky even if washed!

25kilopumpkin basically just short crust pastry, rolled out into a sheet; brush with melted butter (leaving about an inch clear around the edges), then cover the melted butter with cinnamon sugar. You can add raisins at this point but I'm not really a fan so don't bother. Then roll your pastry up into a sausage, squidge the ends down to seal, and cut into slices. Place the slices cut side up on a greased baking tray or in a greased cake tin and bake until the pastry is done.

I'm going to make some tomorrow, I think :)

thank you, may try it also!

fruitilla yes yes yes to the oj an ginger biccies cake! I went in a weekend away to a youth hostel with the youth club when I was about 10 or 11 and we made this, it was fab!

Also a bero book girl too, ours used to have a kids section in it for things to make with the left over pastry, I always remember the pigs in blankets one

The oj & ginger biscs cake can be made as an adult version by dipping the ginger nuts into sweet sherry - it's absolutely divine and a very easy dessert.

One of my jobs was to make up the Yeomans/Smash

First thing I ever did with our new fangled microwave was to make a pineapple upside down cake. I was about 10 I think.

I had (and still do have - ds has made some of the recipes) The Play and Cook Book by Marguerite Patten. I love that book :)

I used to be allowed to make custard when I was small! Bird's Eye Custard powder, stirring the powder with milk and sugar and then adding the extra hot milk.

and those packet Lemon meringue pies...I think you had to make your own pastry, then there was a packet of filling to heat that had a small lemon capsule in it that had to melt, I don't remember what happened about the meringue!

Also used to make peppermint creams and I am inspired to make some more, I have a bottle of creme de menthe too. Also coffee creams too and coconut ice! And marzipan cherries which were maraschino cherries covered in marzipan and rolled in chocolate.

AND the pineapple upside down cake! I should do that at the weekend, my ma is visiting, see if she remembers! :D

Definitely peppermint creams! We still have them every year at Christmas.

We make them with royal icing left over from making the Christmas cake - it's basically the same recipe. Just add a few drops peppermint essence and some colouring.

Also coconut ice (from my children's cookery book), marzipan fruits and chocolate "truffles" which had all sorts of weird things in them.

I remember the oj and ginger biscuit cake! i may have to try the sherry version now!

Also, the birds eye trifle packet mixes - still one of my guilty pleasures!

Jam tarts from a recipe in the Dairy Book of Home Cookery. My mum's still got that book and looking through it now brings back a load of very happy memories.

Made cocnut ice at school, in about 1986, for Mothers Day. I wonder if my mum ate it