Fairy cakes

Fairy cakes are very easy to make. Following the same receipe, my cakes always turn out the same.

 The first time I baked this cake was in1971 during my domestic science class, Stella Maris Secondary School, Tanjung Aru.The class was taught by Mrs Dawson. In school, the recipe was called Queen Cakes. Now it has other names, ie cup cakes or fairy cakes.

Our secondary school's recommended a cookery book; it had 175 pages , published from the Borneo Literature Bureau. The title of the book was "Cookery for beginners" with a green cover and it's a cooking book for junior secondary level.

This photocopied book, "Cookery for beginners" may be old now but believe it or not, it has followed me  overseas  to Brunei, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, England, UAE  😂 

I loved the book so much when I was young and had it photocopied into another book. Partly because I didn't want to spoil the pages of the original book.  My 6th sense told me i won't regret. The original book was kept undisturbed at my parent's house after I left school and took the photocopied one with me wherever I go. 

 True enough, some years later, there was a sudden flash flood at my father's house, a large number of items were badly damaged, including in his store, where he kept all his children's stuff, his precious letters from his ex British boss from UK and my favourite school cookery book. 

Many years has passed and my favourite photocopied cookery book is still with me😊. In those days, all recipes were measured in ounces, not in grams, while vegetables, meat and fish were weighed in Kati. Even the weighing machine was all in ounces and kati.

My favourite recipe in school .. fishball soup, page 39....

Look at the measurements..Fish 1/2 kati !!

I like this old school cookery book because it brings beautiful memories  of school time and how my mom excitedly, waited to see what i had made in the cookery class and couldn't wait to taste it.

 I remember going to the market a day early, to buy the ingredient for the cookery class,😂  Some vendor got annoyed with the small amount purchased but some were understanding because they knew it's for the cooking class in school.

There were  no supermarkets in those days

Photograph taken in 1971

Teachers from Stella Maris Secondary school, Tg Aru. Sabah.

Mother Aquanas (forgotten how to spell it right,now) the school principal sitting in the middle and Mrs Dawson on the right end of this photo with a red arrow pointing to her.

There were only a few teachers in this school because there were only about ?? 5 classes.

Among all the cake recipes, fairy cake is the easiest for me to remember.

 Every thing was 4 oz. ie butter, flour and caster sugar except the baking powder, egg and vanilla essence.

As a student, I remembered Mrs Dawson said, " After the cake mixture was done, scoop out a spoonful of the mixture and try to drop it from the spoon within 3 counts. If it doesn't drop within 3 counts, add 1-2 tablespoon of milk." Those words stay in my memory forever.

My husband is very fussy with food. He won't touch or try any food he doesn't like the look of.  Unlike others who love to try all the Asian exotic food . You can count the number of food he likes in Malaysia on one hand, ie various fried rice dishes, fried king fish, prawn fritters, Stir fried beef slice with ginger and Malaysian Curry chicken because its not too spicy.

For the sweet, his favourite, is freshly home-baked fairy cakes and apple crumble.These 2 are his favourite and he never says no to these when i suggest baking them.

 The aroma of these freshly bake cakes from the oven filled the entire kitchen and wafting out to the living room.....My husband would lift his nose with his eyes closed, to fill the aroma of the cakes in his nostrils....Nothing beats the aroma of warm, freshly baked fairy cakes.

Fairy Cake or Queen cakes

Ingredients:

110gm (4 oz) margarine or butter. My husband preferred butter.

110gm (4 oz ) caster sugar

110gm(4 oz) self raising flour

2 free-range eggs ( Lightly beaten )

1 teasp vanilla essence

 50 gm raisins

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C and line the cup cake tin with baking paper cups.

2. Sieved the flour in a bowl and set aside.

3. Cream butter and sugar together with electric beater until pale and fluffy.

4. Add the beaten eggs and Vanilla essence until well mixed.




5. Fold in the flour



6.Scoop some cake mixture with the mixing spoon and drop the mixture counting to 3.

    Add 1-2 tabsp milk if the mixture doesnt drop after counting to 3.

7. Add in the raisins.



8.Pour out  the mixture into paper cups 3/4 full.

9. Bake for 8-15 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean.

9. Set aside to cool.

It was tea time, my husband love these freshly baked fairy cakes with a pot of hot tea, at the verandah of our apartment.😘😍