A mince pie is a sweet pie of English origin filled with mincemeat, being a mixture of fruit, spices and suet. The pies are traditionally served during the Christmas season in much of the English-speaking world. Its ingredients are traceable to the 13th century, when returning European crusaders brought with them Middle Eastern recipes containing meats, fruits, and spices; these contained the Christian symbolism of representing the gifts delivered to Jesus by the Biblical Magi. Mince pies, at Christmas time, were traditionally shaped in an oblong shape, to resemble a manger and were often topped with a depiction of the Christ Child.
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit, nuts, fruit preserves, brown sugar, sweetened vegetables, or with thicker fillings based on eggs and dairy. Savoury pies may be filled with meat, eggs and cheese or a mixture of meat and vegetables.
Spotted dick is a traditional British steamed pudding, historically made with suet and dried fruit and often served with custard.
A wedding cake is the traditional cake served at wedding receptions following dinner. In some parts of England, the wedding cake is served at a wedding breakfast; the 'wedding breakfast' does not mean the meal will be held in the morning, but at a time following the ceremony on the same day. In modern Western culture, the cake is usually on display and served to guests at the reception. Traditionally, wedding cakes were made to bring good luck to all guests and the couple. Nowadays, however, they are more of a centerpiece to the wedding and are not always even served to the guests. Some cakes are built with only a single edible tier for the bride and groom to share, but this is rare since the cost difference between fake and real tiers is minimal.
A mille-feuille, also known by the names Napoleon in North America, vanilla slice in the United Kingdom, and custard slice, is a French dessert made of puff pastry layered with pastry cream. Its modern form was influenced by improvements made by Marie-Antoine Carême.
An Eccles cake is a small, round pie, similar to a turnover, filled with currants and made from flaky pastry with butter, sometimes topped with demerara sugar.
A fat rascal, closely related to the historical turf cake, is a type of cake, similar to a scone or rock cake in both taste and ingredients. It originated in Yorkshire at least as early as the 19th century.
Swindon railway station is on the Great Western Main Line in South West England, serving the town of Swindon, Wiltshire. The station is 77 miles 23 chains down the line from the zero point at London Paddington and lies between Didcot Parkway and Chippenham. It is managed by Great Western Railway, which also operates all of the services from the station.
Banbury railway station serves the town of Banbury in Oxfordshire, England. The station is operated by Chiltern Railways, on the Chiltern Main Line, and has four platforms in use.
Lardy cake, also known as lardy bread, lardy Johns, dough cake and fourses cake, is a traditional rich spiced form of bread found in several southern counties of England, each claiming to provide the original recipe. It remains a popular weekend tea cake in the southern counties of England, including Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorset and Gloucestershire.
Sponge cake is a light cake made with egg whites, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Some sponge cakes do not contain egg yolks, like angel food cake, but most of them do. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during the Renaissance, possibly in Spain. The sponge cake is thought to be one of the first non-yeasted cakes, and the earliest attested sponge cake recipe in English is found in a book by the English poet Gervase Markham, The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman (1615). Still, the cake was much more like a cracker: thin and crispy. Sponge cakes became the cake recognised today when bakers started using beaten eggs as a rising agent in the mid-18th century. The Victorian creation of baking powder by English food manufacturer Alfred Bird in 1843 allowed the addition of butter to the traditional sponge recipe, resulting in the creation of the Victoria sponge. Cakes are available in many flavours and have many recipes as well. Sponge cakes have become snack cakes via the Twinkie.
Hunt Edmunds was a brewery in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England.
Plum cake refers to a wide range of cakes usually made with dried fruits such as currants, raisins, sultanas, or prunes, and also sometimes with fresh fruits. There is a wide range of popular plum cakes and puddings. Since the meaning of the word "plum" has changed over time, many items referred to as plum cakes and popular in England since at least the eighteenth century have now become known as fruitcake. The English variety of plum cake also exists on the European mainland, but may vary in ingredients and consistency. British colonists and missionaries brought the dried fruit variety of cake with them, for example, in British India where it was served around the time of the Christmas holiday season. In America's Thirteen Colonies, where it became associated with elections, one version came to be called "election cake".
A railway refreshment room is a catering facility attached to a railway station that was formerly common in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries that were formerly part of the British Empire. They were opened in the 19th century to serve passengers when trains did not convey catering facilities, and thus served passengers en route. Refreshment rooms were similar to tearooms, and generally served a variety of hot drinks, pastries, cakes, and light meals. With the introduction of buffet and restaurant cars, their importance began to decline.
The English Huswife is a book of English cookery and remedies by Gervase Markham, first published in London by Roger Jackson in 1615. Markham's best-known work, it was a bestseller of its time, going through nine editions, and at least two other reprints, by 1683. It was issued as a two-volume work, Countrey Contentments, the other volume being The Husbandmans Recreations.
Banbury cheese was an English cheese produced in Banbury, Oxfordshire. Once one of the town's most prestigious exports, and nationally famous, the production of the cheese went into decline by the 18th century, and was eventually forgotten. The cheese is best known today through an insult in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor (1597).
Cumberland rum nicky is a sweet shortcrust pastry tart or pie, commonly filled with dates and stem ginger, flavoured with rum, and sweetened with brown sugar. Rum nickies are associated with the historic county of Cumberland in northwest England, and the ingredients used in their manufacture reflect the county's former significance as a major import and trading centre for products of the UK's Caribbean colonies. As with many traditional foodstuffs, the precise list of ingredients can vary between different cooks and recipes, with currants and cinnamon being common additions or substitutions.
Barrie Stuart Trinder is a British historian and writer on industrial archaeology. After a career in teaching, he took a PhD with the University of Leicester, graduating in 1980 for a thesis on the history of Banbury. He then became a research fellow at the Ironbridge Institute, and later lectured on industrial archaeology at Nene College of Higher Education in Northampton. He was a founder member of The International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage (TICCIH). He has written and edited on the history of Banbury, on Shropshire, and on the industrial archaeology and industrial history of Britain generally. He edited The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Industrial Archaeology (1992). He was made a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2000.
