Product Description

If as a child you devoured Enid Blyton's classics like the Famous Five or Malory Towers, or loved to lose yourself in the adventures of Pippi Longstocking or What Katy Did, then CHERRY CAKE AND GINGER BEER is the book for you. A wonderfully nostalgic cookery book, it will take you straight back to your favourite children's books and show you how to cook the feel-good foods that feature so strongly in them. So, you'll find recipes for Swallows and Amazons Squashed-Fly Biscuits, the Famous Five's Gorgeous Ginger Beer, and Gloriously Sticky Marmalade Roll from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe amongst others. Divided into appropriate sections like Proper Elevenses, Picnic Treats and Lessons in the Kitchen each recipe is introduced with an evocative description of the book that inspired it. Guaranteed to take you straight back to your childhood, the book is an escapist treat for grown-ups and will encourage you to re-visit much-loved classics and share them with the next generation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #742532 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Review
'This treasure of a book is packed with lovely recipes to transport you back to childhood.' -- Prima 'An amazing book, heartening and delightful ... everybody should read this book ... what parenting is supposed to be about' -- Vanessa Feltz, BBC Radio London

About the Author
Jane Brocket is the creator of the hugely popular website www.yarnstorm.blogs.com , which has a huge international following. She is the author of the Gentle Art of Domesticity and Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer, both published by Hodder & Stoughton. A Master of Wine and a lapsed PhD student, she lives in Berkshire with her husband and three children. To find out more visit www.janebrocket.com.

Customer Reviews

An enchanting treat for adults and children alike
Not just a wonderful collection of recipes that children will love to help you cook, but a nostalgic wander through the best loved books of our childhoods - Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women and so many others. I loved Jane Brocket's last book The Gentle Art of Domesticity, and in this new (very different!) book she matches her talent for cooking with her interest in childrens literature. Alongside extracts from literary classics and the original illustrations, she comes up with her versions of the food the children would have been eating: picnics, high teas, camp-fires, breakfasts, midnight feasts and makeshift adventure meals. My 9 year old - an obsessive Enid Blyton fan - can't get enough of the Famous 5 recipes. What's more, the recipes really work. Her rice pudding is better than Nigella's.

Recipes and Prejudice
This is an interesting book, based on a good idea. The author shares with us the recipes for many of the foods that are found in children's literature of a particular period. Unfortunately there is an overabundance of Enid Blyton in the book and too little of other, better children's authors.

Enid Blyton's school stories were full of negative portrayals of students of other cultures - comic Spanish, American and French students, who are depicted as being morally inferior to the British students. And CS Lewis' book "The Horse and His Boy" openly describes the white Narnians as being morally superior to the obviously Asian villains.

Jane Brocket is partial to the work of authors such as Blyton and Lewis, and neglects the work of more tolerant and open minded authors like Roald Dahl, and Richmal Crompton. And on occasion a bit of authentic British racial prejudice creeps into her own book, too, as when she comments that an "honest" British Marmalade roll is "morally superior" to Turkish delight.