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Last weekend I baked a Christmas cake, something I'd been meaning to do for 20 years. I put this unusual culinary act down to a dwindling social life but new intelligence suggests I could be part of a global baking phenomenon. We are, it seems, trying to bake our way out of the recession.
Not only was this year's fastest rising recipe search on Google for cupcakes, but sales of baking materials are sharply up, according to both Allinson and Asda. Waitrose has even repackaged ingredients like cornflour and glacé cherries into elegant pastel tubs. People want to do it properly too: the Women's Institute is struggling to meet demand for its baking courses.
Can cake cure anything? I'm beginning to think so. Filling the house with the scents of brandy-soaked fruit and warm spice certainly helped me fight a particularly Victorian bout of flu. And the precision and ritual of cakemaking is a great antidote to the economic chaos. Being forced to engage with baking parchment, tablespoons and scales reminds us that life is made up of simple, enduring stuff that can't be wiped away by the click of a hedge fund manager's mouse.
Taking solace in baked goods is catching. I know one high-flyer who took redundancy then shunned job offers in favour of setting up a cake stall. Another is so keen on a career change he's turned his kitchen into an ad hoc bakehouse. At night he experiments with "mother dough" bought on eBay as he tries to create the perfect loaf. When he does, he'll set up a sourdough bakery. Careers come and go, but bread is a basic.
Psychologists say that in troubled times we seek out foods that offer a fast change in mood, none more so than cakes, the great culinary pacifiers.
The last time I noticed a spontaneous outbreak of baking was directly after the 7/7 bombings. Two friends confessed they donned aprons as soon as the news broke and set about constructing Victoria sponge and millionaire's shortbread. But not to eat. They took slices to their neighbours as though a dormant Blitz spirit had stirred within them.
At home I'm nursing my fledgling fruit cake with regular feeds of brandy. This is serious work. As we women have long known, there aren't many problems you can't solve with a piece of cake.
Reader views (2)
Dear God, please no more regaling us with accounts of your heroic sacrifices and struggles with the recession!
For those who really are going through genuine difficulties, your weekly homilies on how to somehow soldier on without organic food hampers, milk deliveries, adding to one's art collection, gym memberships, optimum savings rates and the services of a Polish home-help to do your washing-up would be laughable if they were not so insensitive.
You haven't lost your job and are not really experiencing "economic chaos" or anything like, are you Charlotte? For those who are, the last thing they need is to be told to eat cake.
- Paul, Brixton, 15/12/2008 21:15
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Your otherwise excellent article omitted the very essence of British baking; the accompanying cup of tea.
The very pillar of the endurance of the nation in hard times, I'd be most intrigued to learn if there has been a corresponding surge in demand for the noble brew.
- Penny Pincher, Chelmsford, 15/12/2008 16:53
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