Review: Battenburg - Not Just Lace!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 30, 2012
Grandma has long had a soft spot for a few traditional British baked items and her collection contains a small but useful selection of UK cookbooks she refers to from time to time, so she was happy to find Jane Ramsey'sTraditional British Cake Recipes (Traditional British Recipes).  These recipes are authentic and varied, tending more to less sweet, more simply constructed cakes than our extravagant multi-layered American concoctions.  Tea Party fans will greatly enjoy Battenburg Cake (much easier to make than it looks!), Victoria Sponge or, best yet, Butterfly Cakes.Butterfly Cakes are simple:  you cut the top off of the cupcake, then cut the top in half.  Frost the remaining cupcake and arrange the two pieces of the top to resemble wings.  You can add a tiny dollop of jelly to the middle if you like.  Lovely, dainty, not too sweet for tea.  Jane makes her Butterfly Cakes from Fairy Cakes (cupcakes) with a buttercream icing.  Grandma has always used whipped cream.Jane presents her recipes in the older style ounces rather than the metric system.  If you don't have one yet, do yourself a favor and buy a digital scale that measures in both ounces and metrics - it makes international baking SO much easier than mucking around trying to convert things!  (Fluid ounces for things like milk are right where they've always been - on the side of your glass Pyrex measuring cup.  8 ounces to the cup, 2 tablespoons to the ounce.)The book is nicely laid out, features an interactive Table of Contents (not interfaced with the Kindle Navigation Menu) and Jane has thoughtfully included pictures of many of the recipes. Now living in the US, Jane presents temperatures in Fahrenheit and explains most of the terms many American cooks will find unfamiliar.