Rock and pop

I've had a bit of a busy day yesterday - geocaching, gym, haircut and then going out to our triathlon club annual dinner in the evening, but knowing that we might not eat until quite late I wanted to have some cake in the house so that we could have a cup of tea and piece of cake late afternoon to keep us going. A Victoria sponge would have been nice, but didn't think I'd have time for that. Second choice was scones but we don't have any strawberry jam in the house and much as I tried I couldn't get my head around scones with any other flavour jam. No cream would be just about ok, but plum or cherry jam on scones would just be odd, same as I'd only ever countenance using raspberry jam in a Victoria sponge. Yes, I am quite possibly mad...

Cupcakes are my usual fail-safe when I want something quick but I wanted something different and so I opted for rock cakes - crumbly mounds of cake filled with a generous handful of dried fruit and topped with a sprinkling of crunchy sugar. Made in the half an hour or so that I had spare between lunch and showering before my haircut whilst bopping round the kitchen to a generous portion of the sort of cheesy pop that I'm only allowed to listen to whilst Mr W is out. My perfect afternoon!

Here is a pre- and post- oven shot of the cakes...

As a footnote, I am still reeling in astoundment at the comment from the lady baker on 'Turn Back Time - The High Street' that she didn't like making cakes - I don't understand, what is there not to like about the joy of producing something so yummy to eat?

Is it really baking?

I think I may be a baking snob...I haven't posted on this blog for ages but this advert in today's paper inspired me and it wasn't in a good way!

It's an advert for a Delia Christmas cake in a packet where all of the ingredients are measured out for you and you just have to combine them and cook it, which to me that is just wrong on so many levels...

Firstly it's rather cheating - I mean part of the skill of making a cake is getting the measurements correct. I guess you could argue that it's convenient if you don't usually bake cakes and don't want to specially buy lots of fancy ingredients. But if I'm honest, are cake ingredients really that fancy? I mean surely things like flour, sugar, butter and eggs are a standard store-cupboard ingredient? True you may not already have dried fruit but a Christmas cake uses a lot of it anyway and the leftovers can always be used to make more cakes or as a healthy snack. As for the spices, yes you only use a little bit in the cake but again they keep for ages and can be used to add a bit of zing to a crumble topping or in more cakes. So I reckon that claiming you don't want to waste ingredients is a somewhat lame excuse for being too lazy to measure it out yourself.

There's also the argument that it would be quicker, but I assume all the bits are individually packaged so by the time you've opened all of those you could probably have measured everything yourself anyway. The real time-saver would be a pre-lined cake tin to bake it in! And of course there is all the additional packaging that this must entail...

Finally the price - the pack costs a tenner and although I'm very anti- buying ready-made cakes, to be honest for that amount of money I'd want a finished cake not a bake-your-own job. Plus I wonder whether the pack includes all the perishable ingredients like eggs and butter, and what about the marizpan and icing, are they included or is there another pack for that?

Yes, whilst the advert is all glossy and sounds good, I think I will be sticking the more traditional method of bake-your-own cakes, although this year we're having Christmas at my parents and my godmother is bringing the cake so there'll be no cake-baking at all for me.