In case you are wondering what on earth a fruit cake recipe has to do with a textiles blog, let me hasten to explain! In the collection of tea-towel design on Spoonflower, in the Amanda Jane Textiles studio (here), there are four based on recipes from my grandmother’s 1930s-1940s recipe book. All the recipes are handwritten by my Granny in ink on lined pages. The cover of the notebook has clearly been used in the kitchen because it is well marked. I used the cover as a frame for each of the recipes, changing the colour a little so the four tea towels would look different from each other. Here are the original four:
Of course, I checked that the writing had reproduced properly, so that each part of the recipe was clearly visible. What I had not noticed was that there was an error in the original of the Fruit Cake recipe! Take a look.
Vinegar! Clearly just a slip of the pen, because obviously SUGAR (as stated in the ingredients) is the right thing to cream with butter to make a cake. I have my friend Theodora to thank for spotting the anomaly. Thanks to the wonders of Photoshop, the tea-towel for sale in the Spoonflower studio is just right, with sugar in the correct place! Take a look below – you would never know there had been a problem. Phew.
All the tea towels fit into a Fat Quarter (68 cm x 50 cm) of Linen-Cotton canvas. You can do a neat double hem all round to finish them. Alternatively, finish the edges on an overlocker and then make a single hem. Buy them here:
Meringues here
Ginger biscuits here
Parkin (ginger cake) here
Fruit cake here