Cupcakes....

or, as we used to call them, Fairy Cakes!  Now when I was very little, I used to watch my grandmother  make these, and she would push the mixture off with her thumb into the bun tin - you know, we didn't use special cases for our Fairy cakes then, although probably later on, we did.  Fashions and availability change, don't you know.

Well, just before popping the bun tray into the hot oven, my grandmother would drop a spoonful of strawberry jam onto the top of the mountain of cake mixture, and as the cakes cooked, the jam settled snugly into the middle of the mix; I can still to this very day, see her in my mind's eye, watching the jam plop down, settling itself nicely into the gooey mass of pale creamy yellow mixture.

As the cakes cooked, some of the jam bubbled up and out of the crusting sponge and as it couldn't retreat, there it would be on the height of the hot cakes, boiling hot, just like the molten lava bubbling up out of a blown volcano; and which firmed up with the cooling of the mass providing your tongue with a crusted, and sometime slightly burnt jammy coating.

And just one bite into the cake brought your teeth and tongue into direct contact with the sweet and still just warm jam centre all surrounded with a lovely soft and moist cake crumb.



Daisy


to be continued.................................