This was weird...

When I left my last job, my colleagues gave me a brilliant leaving present - a subscription to Olive magazine. I've been really looking forward to my first issue, and as I came in last night, I was thinking about eating one of the cakes I'd made before I went out. As I came in I saw that my first issue of Olive had arrived in yesterday's post. It's got a rare and juicy-looking hunk of roast beef on the front, which immediately made me feel hungry, but what I thought was odd was the insert - a little booklet of 30 irresistible cakes, with four fairy cakes decorated with buttercream on the cover. I haven't baked fairy cakes for ages, and I can't remember ever topping little cakes with buttercream before, so I just thought this was an interesting coincidence. Of all the foods to see yesterday...

Fairy cakes

When I was at school we used to go to my grandparents' for tea, once a week. My Mum disputes this, saying it wasn't anything like that often, but that's how I remember it. My grandmother would pick us up from school, give us a caramel bar each, and tell us not to tell our mother as we didn't have sweets very often at home. Then, almost without exception, we'd be spoiled with a feast of steak and homemade chips. The steak would be slathered in butter and grilled and the chips double-fried for extra oomph. We'd have something with Wall's vanilla ice-cream for pudding - usually tinned pineapple or other fruit.

But fairy cakes are the food I most associate with my grandmother. She seemed to make them all the time - squashed fly cakes (with sultanas and raisins), which were my elder brother's favourite, chocolate cakes for me. Everyone else seemed to like both. She also made butterfly cakes with whipped cream filling, scones, eclairs and lots of other amazing things for a greedy child to savour. I can't remember when I began 'helping' her bake cakes in the kitchen, but I really loved it and that experience played a great part in developing my deep passion for food.

Every now and then I feel the need to bake - I know my mum gets it too - and yesterday was one of those times. I realised I had all the right ingredients, which doesn't often happen, so I decided to bake a few chocolate fairy cakes. I didn't have any chocolate to hand to melt on the top as my gran would have done (it was always bourneville, with a cadbury's button squished in the top), but I made chocolate butter cream and added a smartie on each for a bit of colour. I've got a horrible cold so I'm not even sure I can taste them properly, but a bit of baking made me feel much better.