NOW CLOSED Share your favourite childhood baking recipe with Anchor Butter for the chance to win £300 voucher!

[AnnMumsnet]

Anchor wants to find out about your favourite baking recipes from your childhood.

Here's what Anchor says: "At Anchor we've been making block butter for over 125 years, to bring bakers high quality, rich and creamy butter for their bakes. We know Anchor is perfect for all types of tasty bakes, whether it's making the pastry for your homemade chicken pie, or millionaires shortbread for that weekend treat with the kids"

Read the feedback from the MN Anchor butter testers here

Most people have fond memories of when they were younger, baking with their families during wet weekends or holidays, getting messy, licking the spoon and waiting impatiently for the bakes to come out of the oven. So which bakes transport you back to your childhood? What are your top 1-2 favourite baking recipes from your childhood? What part of these bakes makes you feel most nostalgic? Have you introduced your children to these bakes?

All who comment on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one tester will win a £300 voucher for the store of your choice.

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Mince pies! Every Christmas eve, standing on a stool next to my mum and putting the dollops of mincemeat in the pastry. It meant Christmas was really happening! I can still feel the excitement and happiness, the warmth of the kitchen. The smell of the cinnamon and the sweet stickiness on my fingers. Bliss! Guess what I do with my children on Chrismas eve? ;-)

My best friend's Nan used to make the most delicious marmalade cake. I've tried making some from recipes online but haven't yet found one that is anywhere near as good. My fondest memories of baking at home would be the Victoria sponge Dad used to make for Sunday tea that we'd have after egg and cress sandwiches and ice cream with smarties. If we were really lucky he'd have made the bread too. Mum used to make pastries and used to really enjoy the coconut tarts.

For me it was a simple 4, 4, 4 (Oz) Victoria sponge cake recipe. Used to bake with my granny and loved baking for my family as the eldest of 4

with the kids it has to be little fairy cakes - the decorating is the best bit! simple recipe of weighing eggs, same amount of butter sugar n flour, maybe with a dash of milk and baking powder

Well of course it was fruit crumble, the most glorious, wonderful kid-makable recipe there is.

Butterfly cakes, which I haven't made in years. DD's not currently overly impressed with the idea of baking - too much risk of getting mucky (yes, I know, strange child).

Drop scones, made on the Esse (Aga variant) made with a basic batter poured directly onto the hot plates greased with a little butter. We used to love making interesting shapes and letters.

My Nan was 'in service' as she called it to various big families. She called herself a 'good, plain cook' and she certainly was. I took a great interest in her kitchen, with its old-fashioned scales with iron weights, big iron mincer screwed onto the table, and so on. She taught me a lot of cookery tips and tricks - half butter, half lard makes the best pastry, draw your finger down the back of the wooden spoon used to stir the lemon curd or custard and tip it sideways to see if the line remains and the mixture has thickened, and many more.

She made the best shortbread in the world, an easy recipe for a child to help with right from the start with its easy, infinitely scalable proportions of 321 -

3 oz (or 6, or 12...) plain flour (a small amount can be replaced with rice flour, if you can get it, it will make the biscuits crisper)
2 oz butter, room temp but no warmer - it MUST be butter, nothing else will do
1 oz sugar
tiny pinch salt

Squidge it together into a ball, working it gently (don't overhandle! or the butter will go oily, or the biscuits will be tough) and press with fingers and knuckles into a shortbread mould (or you can roll out and cut with cutters into biscuit shapes.) It should hardly colour in the oven and will crisp up as it cools.

Shake some caster sugar over the finished shortbread.

3-2-1 cookies were my favourite to bake with my gran and one of the things I wasfirst allowed to bake without adult help.

I have fond memories of baking Bachelor Buttons with my late mum. Bachelor Buttons are rich, buttery biscuits choc full of raisins, coconut, cherries & chopped walnuts. The recipe dates from the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. Made as little balls, these 'button' biscuits were meant to mimic the colourful buttons on a dandy bachelor's coat. After we made them my mum would let me choose my favourite antique china cup and we'd enjoy the Bachelor Buttons with a cup of tea. I loved these treats because they were so much fun to make and they tasted so lovely and buttery!

I enjoyed making apple and blackberry pies plate pies with my mum. We used to collect the blackberries and apples locally and then spent an afternoon baking loads of pies that were then frozen. We had pies after Sunday lunch for months.

I have great memories of visiting my grandparents on a Saturday, grandad would be out tending to his lawn and geraniums, nan always had something fantastic freshly baked, her signature bake was without shadow of a doubt her scones.
Fruit, plain or cheese, they were usually still warm and wonderfully light and fluffy.
We would usually head straight for the kitchen on visiting to see what was 'in the tin'
I still can't get my scones anything like hers.

Nothing fancy, but little fairy cakes with sultanas in. I remember making them over and over with my mum, so they make me smile even now.

My mum wasn't a baker but I remember making fairy cakes with her. Licking the spoon was my favourite bit! Always seemed to taste nicer than the finished product.

I remember a rocky road type recipe that my Mum made. We called it Dinnie Dog Food Biscuit, because I thought it looked like the dog food that our pet dog, Dinnie ate. It was delicious, I must ask my Mum if she has the recipe now.

Fruit Flapjacks. I made them with my nan the first time as we had run out of eggs (due to already baking lots of cakes that day). I still bake them intermittently due to the fact that they are really easy and have very little washing up.

Gorgeous honey spice cake, so moist and lovely.

Lots of Bakers in my family but my Nanna cooked the most amazing spread if we visited on a Sunday .

Coconut fairy cakes that were so moist & gorgeous , almond slices , welsh cakes and always a fruit crumble or tart .

We would have huge doorstep slices of home made bread & real butter , I can taste it now .... Such happy memories

Also my mums birthday cakes , she always made them as we didn't have much money , the one year she made one of those cakes with a Sindy doll in the middle with the cake as a dress all around , amazing !

My favourite to make when I was little was rice crispie cake - just chocolate and rice krispies.

When I got a bit older I was taught how to make rock cakes (like scones), that proud feeling from baking has stayed with me and I try and bake often now.

Pineapple upside down cake made in the microwave, was as close as my mum got to baking. So it's a good job I had other bakers, my godmother for instance and her cheese scones to keep me fed.

I used to love making fairy cakes with my DM, and then decided whether to cover them in icing and hundreds and thousands or turn them into butterfly cakes.

For us it was butterfly cakes- normal fairy cakes with the tops sliced off, filled with buttercream, and then the top cut in half and made into wings for the cake. On really special occasions we'd be allowed to sprinkle with hundreds and thousands as well :)

My mum let me make Coconut Cake. It was so easy - cup each of coconut, sr flour, sugar, milk- then stir and chuck in a loaf tin. My four year can do it herself, all the measuring and mixing, and I love being able to do with her what my mum did with me.

Making individual fairy cakes.
As many small bowls as kids, then one tablespoon each of Marge, sugar and flour. A little cocoa if wanted, and mix well. One tablespoon on milk, mix and into a fairy case. 180 c of 10 mins. Fight over whose cake is whose!!!

My mum always made rock buns with us, and still does with my two kids. I had an usborne cook book which has been handed down to DD. My speciality from that was profiteroles - very fancy for a 9yr old!