Paddington's Orange Poppyseed Birthday Cake
This is the "Afternoon Tea Orange and Poppyseed Cake" that I baked for Paddington for this birthday.
The cake recipe is a very old one, given to my Great-Grandmother by her cook before she left service and retired in the 1960s. The recipes were probably written down by her when she entered service in the 1920s, and she probably learned them from the cook whom she was apprenticed to. My Great-Grandmother's cook gave my Great-Grandmother, who had never cooked a meal in her life, a hand written cookbook of her "never-fail recipes". Whilst my Great-Grandmother employed another cook and never cooked a meal throughout the remainder of her very long life, she did cherish the cookbook, which was passed to my Grandmother, who rarely cooked herself. She in turn passed the cookbook to me, and I do enjoy cooking many of the delightful recipes from it. These include "French Lemon Cake" and "Thick Breakfast Orange Curd".
This beautiful faerie tale pantomime nursery tea set was made in England by the Shell China Company in the 1930s. It features eight cups, saucers and plates as well as a teapot, coffee pot, milk jug, sugar bowl, platters, sandwich plate, a lidded soup tureen on its own dish and a gravy or cream jug. Each piece is gilt edged and decorated and feature different faerie tales including: "Cinderella", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Dick Whittington and his Cat", "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" amongst others. The set I acquired from England, and it is a sister set to a 1920s Shell China Company nursery rhyme tea set that I was given as a gift some years ago by a close friend who knows I collect nursery ware and children’s tea sets. Each guest at the tea party also has a tiny doll (bear) sized nursery napkin which is hand embroidered with a donkey motif. There are also doll (bear) sized tea spoons which are sterling silver salt spoons, and the sugar ladle in the "Cinderella" sugar bowl and the sugar nips in the "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" sugar bowl are from the Eighteenth Century and are sterling silver.
Paddington's Orange Poppyseed Birthday Cake
This is the "Afternoon Tea Orange and Poppyseed Cake" that I baked for Paddington for this birthday.
The cake recipe is a very old one, given to my Great-Grandmother by her cook before she left service and retired in the 1960s. The recipes were probably written down by her when she entered service in the 1920s, and she probably learned them from the cook whom she was apprenticed to. My Great-Grandmother's cook gave my Great-Grandmother, who had never cooked a meal in her life, a hand written cookbook of her "never-fail recipes". Whilst my Great-Grandmother employed another cook and never cooked a meal throughout the remainder of her very long life, she did cherish the cookbook, which was passed to my Grandmother, who rarely cooked herself. She in turn passed the cookbook to me, and I do enjoy cooking many of the delightful recipes from it. These include "French Lemon Cake" and "Thick Breakfast Orange Curd".
This beautiful faerie tale pantomime nursery tea set was made in England by the Shell China Company in the 1930s. It features eight cups, saucers and plates as well as a teapot, coffee pot, milk jug, sugar bowl, platters, sandwich plate, a lidded soup tureen on its own dish and a gravy or cream jug. Each piece is gilt edged and decorated and feature different faerie tales including: "Cinderella", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Dick Whittington and his Cat", "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" amongst others. The set I acquired from England, and it is a sister set to a 1920s Shell China Company nursery rhyme tea set that I was given as a gift some years ago by a close friend who knows I collect nursery ware and children’s tea sets. Each guest at the tea party also has a tiny doll (bear) sized nursery napkin which is hand embroidered with a donkey motif. There are also doll (bear) sized tea spoons which are sterling silver salt spoons, and the sugar ladle in the "Cinderella" sugar bowl and the sugar nips in the "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" sugar bowl are from the Eighteenth Century and are sterling silver.