Vintage Sweets

I found this wonderful magazine from the 1940's or 1950's a weekend ago at the Malvern Hills giant flea market. It is battered and has been dripped on, but it's absolutely brilliant. There's recipes for cherry candy, coconut creams, pineapple cream jellies, harlequin marzipan, and floral fondants. I will make some soon and show you the results. Some of the recipes are a little hard to decipher. Many call for the sweets to be boiled over the fire. No mention of stoves. I shall have to ask my mother when stoves first appeared in England. The ingredients call for a "gill of cream". What is a gill? Green spinach colouring is also one of the keys apparently. Not sure if I'll be able to find that in the supermarkets nowadays. And what is a "loaf of sugar"? I do hope it's not as big as a loaf of bread. Does anyone know? Forgive me if these are standard baking terms.

Extremely Crafty Ideas Issue 2 Hot off the Press!

Last weekend I went chocolate cup mad! I love the photo of this one. It's made the cover of the second issue of Extremely Crafty Ideas. Head over to http://www.extremelycrafty.co.uk/ and read it hot off the press! Inside the cup are licorice allsorts. Aren't they wonderful?

Licorice allsorts are a famous English candy (known over here as sweets) and were first produced by Basset & Co, now owned by Cadbury’s. They are a mixture of coconut flavourings, licorice, fruit flavours, and fruity jelly. Legend has it that in 1899, Basset’s sales representative, Charlie Thompson dropped a platter of candies he was showing his client. All of the candies mixed together. The client tried some of the mixture and loved it! Basset’s soon after began mass producing these and even made their company mascot, Bertie Basset, in the form of a man made out of licorice allsorts in 1929.

My favourite ones are the yellow coconut circles with the licorice in the middle. How about you?