It’s not too long now until it is the annual family holiday, where as many of us as can make it go away together in early spring. We hire a big house,my cousins and I, and take our children and now our grandchildren away to a different part of the country for a week’s holiday together.
We take it in turns to cook dinner in the evening, a different family each night, plus the ‘children’ (the oldest is thirty!) cook one night and we have sausages and jacket potatoes the evening we arrive. We have a help-yourself breakfast, although for the first few mornings we have chipolata sausages on the go, and we do out own thing for lunch. We have plenty of wine, and other refreshments, but we don’t have desserts… instead we have cake. Each family brings a couple of cakes, and there are certain ones which we always want, Battenburg (everything home-made including the marzipan) coffee and walnut, brownies etc… but I can never decide what to make. Fora couple of years I made Simnel cake, last year I had a disaster with carrot cake; it’s my favourite but I just can’t make it at all… so frustrating as I’m good at making every other sort you could imagine!
I think this year I might make a ginger cake… the only problem with that is I might eat too much of it!!
Lois Elsden 
It’s very odd when you can’t make something you like. I love scones, but when I make them they’re like rock cakes. My mother’s, on the other hand, are light as a feather. I use the same recipe and seem to do the same thing, but after 40 odd years of trying they’re still not nice. Any tips?
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After I’ve rubbed the butter and flour together I use a knife to mix in the milk, and then just pull it together really lightly… mine still aren’t as good as my mum’s either! she seemed to just fling everything into the bowl, rub it almost carelessly together, roll, cut, oven and as you say… light as a feather, every time!
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Try doing it blindfolded standing on one leg with one arm tied behind your back.It’s worth a go.
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I’ll let you know how I get on… I might even send you a blindfold single-leg armless slice…
Reminds me of a joke about the three-headed, no-armed, one-legged man waiting at a bus stop…
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Let me guess. A man stops to give him a lift and says ello, ello, ello. You look armless so op in and I’ll give you a ride He musta bin a cockney as eeh dropped is H’s right?
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Very good!!
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