UK Foods you have NOT learned to love

Enjoy!!!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamiejones/british-party-foods-the-world-is-missing-out-on?utm_term=.sk3a3rLpw#.ljjyZAPo6

That link had all the prime offenders and reminded me of one thing that I've always disliked: Fairy Cakes!  Like cupcakes but stale and crappy.  Even the frosting is usually crappy. 

How can they taste stale straight out of the oven?

To help with ripening an avocado, you can put it in a paper bag with a banana. The ethylene from the banana ripens the avocado... supposedly! 

Speaking of (fairy) cakes...I miss going to the Publix (or any supermarket) bakery and having them write "Happy Birthday" or whatever on cakes. I think fresh cakes are a rare find here. Of course you have your bakeries, but more often than not when wanting a birthday cake, I find those larger celebration cakes that are more like works of art, covered in icing and sugar crafts. They look better than they taste usually I think personally because inside is often dry and boring. I want a fresh cake covered in a whipped frosting (and frosting writing)!

I think Waitrose will write some stuff on your cake , but like you said it's not made fresh for you. 

Costco will do it of course.  For my birthday, my daughter used a Costco cake as a base and made a whole PAC man design.  I liked it.

Essentially, if you want a cake made fresh for you, you usually have to go to a specialist cake shop and put in an order.

There's one in Bristol that I love - Celebrations Cakes - they made my parents' wedding cake 36 years ago (yesterday) and we've been eating their cakes ever since - they also made my brother's wedding cake in 2014.

Unfortunately they're a bit expensive, so we only ever get to have them on special birthdays/anniversaries/weddings etc. - but they are my favourite cakes ever .


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I really like a French wedding cake.  It's usually a giant pyramid made out of profiteroles, stuck together with Caremalized sugar glue.  Yum!

Speaking of (fairy) cakes...I miss going to the Publix (or any supermarket) bakery and having them write "Happy Birthday" or whatever on cakes. I think fresh cakes are a rare find here. Of course you have your bakeries, but more often than not when wanting a birthday cake, I find those larger celebration cakes that are more like works of art, covered in icing and sugar crafts. They look better than they taste usually I think personally because inside is often dry and boring. I want a fresh cake covered in a whipped frosting (and frosting writing)!

Costco!  £12.  Done!

I really like a French wedding cake.  It's usually a giant pyramid made out of profiteroles, stuck together with Caremalized sugar glue.  Yum!

You mean a "croquembouche"?
Yeah, that's pretty tasty


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Oh man, Costco do them? I am getting more and more sad about not having a card. I am missing out!

My husband would have LOVED a croquembouche for our wedding. Instead he was stuck with red velvet cupcakes with American and Union Jack flags stuck in them :-P

Oh man, Costco do them? I am getting more and more sad about not having a card. I am missing out!

My husband would have LOVED a croquembouche for our wedding. Instead he was stuck with red velvet cupcakes with American and Union Jack flags stuck in them :-P

Whereabouts do you live?  Come to Reading - I'll get you in!

I hear you on the cakes.  The best grocery store cake I ever had here was a madeira cake from m&s, who have an alright bakery.  But it's not the same as the states!

I miss the Dairy Queen ice cream cakes! For birthdays in my family, we either had a DQ cake or a buttercream sheet cake from the grocery store or local bakery.

My husband's grandmother almost always made him a Victoria sponge cake for his birthdays. That's the go-to cake in his family.

And make sure he doesn't put them in the fridge like my hubby always does (even if I repeatedly tell him not too) 

Only if they are ripe and you want to halt them from ripening further....I had no idea until my dad told me that.

And good to hear about mangoes, will have to try them and see if they are as good.  Growing up we had a mango tree in our backyard, nothing better than when the fruit ripens on the branch, biggest issue with mangoes in the US is that they have to pick them too early.

How can anyone not like Yorkshire puddings or as my dad calls them..bon bons.  My husband makes the light and yummy.

We have a lovely local bakery chain called Harry Gows which makes amazing cakes.  If you're lucky enough to get a Harry Gow birthday cake, life is good! 

I've got a funny US-UK story though about cake. I volunteer with a group called Children with Diabetes, which is a US based charity and they have huge conferences in Orlando every year, but started doing  UK conferences about 7-8 years ago.  The charity has dieticians who are amazing and work with the kitchen staff to get accurate carb counts and to cater for Coeliacs (Because Type 1 Diabetes and Coeliac go hand and hand).  So working from afar, they had requested that one of the lunch desserts to be yellow sheet cake with chocolate frosting (the very thing US school cafeterias are really good at).
Well I'm not sure why the kitchen staff didn't ask for clarification or at least hit up google or something, but out came this strange gloopy concoction that was definitely not yellow and no chocolate frosting!  I'm guessing they were trying to make something like tiramisu ,but it didn't work and was really pretty gross.   

The next year, they asked for sponge cake with chocolate icing 

Whereabouts do you live?  Come to Reading - I'll get you in!

Manchester :-( But I would try to convince the husband to take a road trip for some decent cake and beef hot dogs, haha! Oh, and a chat with someone else from Clearwater!