The Bluestocking - Raiders of the Lost Sparp

[lcakethereforeIam]

Welcome everyone. Wipe your feet, it's been wet out.

Don't forget to namechange before posting if necessary.

I just buy Lidl's chocolate covered marzipan bars.

Mm, marzipan.

< adds item to Christmas shopping list >

Aldi has small chocolate-covered Lubeck marzipan sweeties this Christmas.

I would love to have a go at making the coffee and walnut battenburg cake that was a Technical bake on Bake-Off. I love marzipan - I make my own, for my Christmas cake, and I’m planning to make extra this year, so I can make some marzipan sweets - dh is a big fan of this idea, and has offered to do any necessary product testing.

In the meantime, I might suggest he buys some Lidl marzipan bars for us - I’m planning to send him to Lidl because they now have frozen geese in stock, and I want to make sure I’ve got one in good time (I fret massively about Christmas, and knowing I’ve got the goose takes one item off my To-Fret list).

Sensible to buy now because bird flu is going to complicate the Christmas supply lines.

I am looking at culling my nut loaf a week before Xmas. Should be nice and plump by then.

the noise it makes is a bit pitiful mind. But not as bad as the carrots

I’m not very keen on marzipan, I adore almonds but prefer them crunchy rather than mushed up and over sweetened.
so one of you can have my share

Ship-bought Battenburg marzipan isn't usually worth it.
Homemade Christmas cake marzipan, OTOH...

I think Maud has the hot chocolate bowser. As well as the Battenburg.

I need to start stocking up on this stuff ASAP.

The Bluey is hosting a Battenburg Appreciation Evening (with bowls of almonds for Errol), & has been redecorated for the occasion. Do come in, you don't have to stand in the street - just stick the bowser hose through an open window.

If you stock up too early, you'll either lose them until next July or eat them before Christmas.

Here comes the hot chocolate bowser! The gradient's against her, but she's on time

I like the driverless bowser. It can get itself to the next thread...

Battenburg appreciation!? Let me in.

I have a special cupboard.
Only some get eaten.

I once overheard a woman telling a friend that she buys all the sweets and biscuits for Christmas early, because there are often bargains to be had this time of year, and puts them aside. ....
....then she finds them, eats them, and has to buy them all again nearer Christmas at higher prices😁

I do love some Battenburg. When I was a kid, I remember the old folks calling it Joe Orton cake. I'm not sure why, but I haven't watched Entertaining Mr Sloane in decades, and that's probably the connection.

I love nuts but I don’t like marzipan. All the more for everyone else.

From here:

Around 2017 I read that Leonie Orton, the playwright Joe Orton’s sister published a book about her memories of Joe who lived in Islington with his partner Kenneth Halliwell.
“And then there was the cake. Joe appeared from the kitchenette holding aloft a plate in the middle of which sat a Battenberg. He was parading in front of us, holding the plate like an exhibit at an auction. Turning the plate around he began to elucidate on its wonderful so magical qualities; the pink and yellowness of the sponge and the precision of the marzipan.”

I don't eat cake much, but Battenberg is yum. And so interactive😁

I have no earthly idea why my dad would have known about Joe Orton's cake preferences. He's a huge fan of Round the Horne, so possibly Julian or Sandy mentioned it.

I like interactive treats, like cake and sweets. If nobody else is there I might nibble part of one layer, then the next and so. I sometimes save the best until last - from a diet pint of view I ought to eat it first and leave the least liked bit on the plate.

Not for food that needs a knife and fork, though. Perhaps too reminiscent of cutting the tubes out of school liver before I could eat it. I’ve been a vegetarian for a long time since.

If I’m eating on my own and the food lends itself to it, I tend to cut it up into the kitchen so I don’t need a knife.

Joe was bludgeoned by Halliwell then Halliwell gassed them both in their flat

there was a court case about this because Joe left everything to Halliwell in his Will.

it was determined that Halliwell died before Joe so joes family inherited his estate and all subsequent royalties.

they all still lived on a council estate, i managed the tax file for the trust and they used to pop in every year for the cheque.

i think we were robbed of a great writer.

@Hedgehogsrightsarehumanrights, you prove - as has been proved before - that there is NOTHING that someone on FWR doesn't know all about.

Yes, FWR has experts in all sorts of areas. 🙏

@Hedgehogsrightsarehumanrights wrote
it was determined that Halliwell died before Joe so joes family inherited his estate and all subsequent royalties.

Was that a pragmatic determination or was there plenty of evidence to support it?

It was a forensic determination that Halliwell drew his last breath, I think seconds or minutes before Joe.

the court papers were held on my file so I read it all, a long time ago.