Sunday 18 November 2007

I'm so excited!

I went to visit my mother-in-law today (who, the way, was a great old fashioned homebaker in her day), while chatting, she asked me for a cake recipe, before I could even open my mouth to give it to her, my husband shouted "stop! don't give her any of your recipes until she gives you her Bunnock recipe" We all laughed heartily, Bunnock is the name of one of her much prized cakes, it is like a moist gingercake,. She used to make it a lot when he was a child.

I had asked for this before but she'd never gotten round to giving it to me. ;-) She smiled at him and went straight to her drawer where she sorted though and came up with, a handful of handswritten, dog eared papers. She handed them to me and said I was welcome to any I fancied!
OH WOW - have been trying to get privvy to these for years!!!! I now have an envelope stuffed with recipes dating back before world war two, they're all there...the Christmas cake recipes from both his Gran's, one which was a throw it in, no messing type of cake, the other a fancy, lots of step type effort, they both represent the two different personalities of my husbands Grandmothers. It's very interesting and I feel very privileged to be given access to these. I also have hand written recipes from the 1950's that his mother used to share with her neighbours, all edited to include any changes she may have made to neighbours recipes and amongst all the scraps of paper is the the Holy Grail of cake recipes finally it has been handed down so that I can bake it for my children and they can bake it for theirs...I have the blessed bunnock recipe! I can't wait to try it...so watch this space, it will be made, photographed, reviewed, eaten and the recipe posted before the week is out...I promise you!!!

4 comments:

Rosie said...

Hi Tulip,
WOW oh WOW you are SO lucky to have been given these recipes!! What a wonderful gift and treasure to be able use and at some point to pass on! Looking forward to seeing your "bunnock" too, can't wait :)

Rosie x

Marie Rayner said...

Oh Julie! What a wonderful prize! I can't wait to see what you come up with from these treasured papers. Looking especially forward to the Bunnock cake!!! Loved the old pictures as well. Thanks so much for sharing this with us!

Marie Rayner said...

Tulip!!! I am missing your cooking and your delicious pictures. Come back to us and start walloping some pots and pans!

Tulip said...

I'd love to Marie, but FIL is really poorly and that is taking up a lot of my time at the moment. I will try to find some time soon to make that bunnock and post the recipe along with a picture...watch this space!