My lovely granny taught me to cook when I was a kid and before she got too old and ill to do it. She died nearly ten years ago now and her cookery books and kitchen notebooks are long since gone unfortunately.
Now that I have my own DC I want to make some of the special cakes which granny did on requests for our birthdays. My brother and I used to love these and it was always the high point of the day. If anyone on here knows these recipes or can recommend anything similar, you would make a misty-eyed cake baker very happy.
Specifically: my brother's favourite was the chocolate cake recipe from The Times cookery book- it was a chocolate sponge sandwich cake with a shiny chocolate glacé icing and glacé cherries to decorate- or toasted flaked almonds or green Angelica sticks.
My favourite cake we used to call 'chocolate orange cake', it was a denser plain sponge cake with broken up dark chocolate bits in the sponge, and I think with some orange juice or zest in the cake. It was a single-layer cake and was always made in a square tin. (Big sophistication). The icing was amazing and was why I loved it. I think now I'd call it a buttercream though I don't remember it being too rich or sickly. It had orange juice in it, orange zest and very finely grated dark chocolate on top.
Oh and she made a fantastic coffee and walnut (sandwich) cake for visitors teas which I would love to eat now as an adult. As a kid I remember not liking the strong taste of the instant coffee in the icing and worrying that the walnut halves to decorate were bitter tasting and looked like brains. That might have been a Times Cookery Book recipe also though not sure.
Anyway if you know these recipes or would recommend any other cake recipes from the 1950's- 70's I would love to hear about them.