Window Shopping - the Disappearing Santa Cake

I saw this amusing cake showing Santa disappearing nose into the snowy icing, in the window of one of my favourite shops for window-shopping. The shop is Genuine Cakes of Hatch End and they have a counter in the middle of the upstairs of Intu shopping mall in Watford.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Happy Halloween Cakes from Genuine Cakes

Genuine cakes always has interesting displays. See them in Hatch End or inside the Intu shopping mall in Watford. I love Halloween cakes. My favourite parts of Halloween are pumpkins and cakes. All the amusement of Halloween with nothing really scary or dangerous or immoral (unless you are dieting).

I took the photos from outside the shop and got reflections in the window glass. However, the reflections on the white cake are striking - I like them.

Any excuse for a cake or a party. If you have a birthday, or want to entertain the children indoors over half term, keep them occupied with decorating and making or eating a cake.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Happy Hallowe-en

Hallowe'en has arrived in the shops. The month of October. Here's a window in John Lewis, Watford with a display.

I remember when Hallowe'en was almost unknown in England but the Americans made a big thing of it. Now all the supermarkets in England are full of Hallowe'en costumes.

Here's a cake in the window of Genuine Cakes, who have a shop in Hatch End and a stand in the centre of the mall in Intu in Watford.

If you bought Hallowe'en hats or fingers or face paints in previous years, you have time to get them out, ready for your home or away parties. As you travel your trip will be enhanced by the hallowe'en window displays and decorations.

If you are on a budget, try poundshop.com
If you need to stock up on hats or outfits for any other occasion, they will be cheaper the day after Hallowe'en.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Valentine's Day Suggestions From Hatch End

Bella's Blooms.

Flowers and red heart shape balloons.

O r a m a Greek restaurant. 

3 courses and prosecco £24.95 with live music.

Pizza Express.

Love at first bite. 2 courses and a glass of Prosecco for £17.95.

The Moon and Sixpence pub.

2 steaks and a bottle of wine for £20.

Krosbie and co.

Cakes from Genuine Cakes.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Courses and classes in chocolate making and cake making

Chocolate making and cake making classes are available all over England, at shops, supermarkets and at U3A classes.

(U3A is University of the Third Age, to Americans - that means educational classes for retirees.) My friend Ruth, who used to run a tea shop, often does cake making classes.

There's a cake making class at Genuine Cakes of Hatch End:

Waitrose supermarket is also running cooking classes. Pick up a leaflet at a Waitrose supermarket or check on line.
http://www.waitrose.com/home/inspiration/waitrose_cookeryschool.html

You also get classes for adults and children at Food shows and chocolate shows. Several chocolate shops around Britain have cookery sessions for children. York and London, to name just a few locations. See my previous posts on Chocolate for more information and pictures of chocolate shops, shows, chocolate making.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Heel cake slice - rush in to buy it before Xmas (or order online)

Genuine Cakes of Hatch End has a most attractive display in the window, constantly changing, so if you are near Hatch End do stop to have a look. (Free parking in the Broadway alongside and if that's full, 20p an hour in the car park.)

I was looking for a Xmas present and this caught my eye - a cake slicer cum server with a heel turning it into a high heel shoe (mid heel actually). You could display it on the dining table or sideboard or in a nicely lit glass cabinet like the one in the window of the shop. Lovely for an engagement party or wedding.

When I went in to ask the price, I was shown that the heel is a detachable magnet. Even better, a bonus, you can present the cake slice in three ways. 

1 under the heel. 2 under the toe with the cake slice supported upside down. 3 With the magnet on top of the handle where it i most easily seen. (You can just spot the tiny circular magnet if you look at it this way up - and demonstrate it to your guests.

The box has an illustration on the back so if you give it to somebody for Xmas or a birthday or engagement or wedding, and you are not there to explain and demonstrate, they can read the box.

This is definitely something for the girl, boy, man,women, trainee chef, patisserie enthusiast who likes making or serving cakes.

If you are passing the shop, look in the window or go in to see it. If live nearby and want it for Xmas, rush to get it. Their other branch is a small but permanent kiosk in Watford near the Apple store, at the John Lewis end of the Harlequin indoor shopping mall (now renamed Intu - which seems less memorable and does not have the symbol).

At £25 it was beyond my budget, but I am sure many people will see it and want it straight away.

I did a search on line, and if you want a different design of heel, such as a zebra, (I prefer the diamond) and a cheaper price - even including gift wrap, and don't mind waiting for delivery. Yes, you can have it delivered and make a cake at home. Or pop along to genuine cakes and buy the cake slice and have a piece of cake while you are shopping. They sell small cakes, too.

As their sign says, they offer free cake samples, (come times they are outside the shop offering a teeny taste, usually one variety - but on Hatch End special days several shops offer bite size samples of food, with flavours or products changing every hour as you will discover if you walk up and down in both directions. You can also order cakes online. Go to cake decorating classes. And they have kids cupcake parties.

Cake and Prosecco bar on the upper mall at Intu, Watford. 

Genuine Cakes UK | Handmade Cakes for All Occasions

genuinecakes.co.uk

info@genuinecakes.co.uk

Tel: 0208 428 8585

Do go to the Genuine Cakes website. It's full of interesting articles and helpful tips. What to do for an outdoor wedding (including providing pashminas for bridesmaids if it gets chilly later in the day in spring and autumn.

And a handy link to a site telling you how to make a braided chollah.

http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/cooking-tips/article/rosh-hashanah-challah-recipe-and-braiding-tips-from-a-shiksa

Cake servers and novelties:

http://www.poshhippo.com/home-and-garden/wild-heel-cake-server/cake-server-gourmet-glam.htm

Christmas Cakes to buy or order or to inspire you, from Hatch End

Christmas cakes as you see can be round or six sided, with icing in white, blue or vivid red. The words Happy christmas can also be written red on white to match.

At a wedding show I saw a cake made with skiers spiralling around the outside of a cone shaped cake. For our son's 13th birthday party I asked the caterer for a ski cake. He did not have a conical mould but suggested making a hill with a square cake base and a triangular sloping top making a diagonal.

We had the square fruit cake underneath cut up for the event. We kept the top intact for a party with neighbours the next day.
The pieces from the cake base and later the top kept in the freezer and were used for teatimes for weeks afterwards. To make your own, search the internet for ski cake to see pictures. On ebay I found sets of edible rice paper or wafer pictures to stick on cupcakes. Also silicon moulds on the theme of skiers, to use for marzipan, icing, or chocolate.

Genuine Cakes

411 Uxbridge Rd, Hatch End, Pinner Middx HA5 4JR

Phone:020 8428 8585.

Halloween Spider Cake & More In Hatch End

A shopper stops to take a photo of the Halloween cakes at Genuine Cakes.

Here's a funny face looking a bit scared and a spider cake.

The sign reads Now taking orders for Halloween cakes. Enquire in the shop for more details.

Under the words they've written Happy Halloween with some flying birds or bats and four ghouls. On the shelf below are a cake with a spider's web on top, another with eyes with caption of the ghost or the onlooker saying, "Mummy, is that you?" On the right is a box of six halloween individual person cupcakes. See detail in the close-up below.

One of the mini cakes has a white skull silhouetted on a chocolate background.

Above is a brown spider on an orange disc on a chocolate background. Plus more designs. 

A cake with a pumpkin, a witch's hat, and a coffin.

Lastly, here's a white five-tiered wedding style white cake for a big occasion, with imitation red dripping blood, I presume, maybe actually strawberry or raspberry flavour drizzle.

All from

Genuine Cakes, 411 Uxbridge Road, Hatch End, Pinner, Middlesex, HA5 4JR, UK.

Tel: 020 8228  8585.

www.genuinecakes.co.uk

To to their website and look at their birthday cakes gallery. My favourite pictures of cakes are the dog and the piano keys. 

If you are a tourist or a reader from overseas, Hatch End has an overground station linking to Euston. It's a suburb in NW London.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, author, poet, can be seen and contacted on Youtube, linkedIn, Facebook. No genuine offers of food or drink refused.

Father's Day Cakes From Genuine Cakes, Hatch End, London

Father's Day Cakes

Go online and you can buy father's day cards by post on ebay cheaper than from you local newsagent - often even including postage.
  You can also order cakes with your message or a picture of Dad.
   In GENUINE CAKES shop in Hatch End I saw these delightful creations.

Christmas Lights & Free Food in Hatch End

My red rheindeer hat cost me only £1 in Tesco Express. That was my contribution to the evening celebrations when the Xmas lights were turned on alongside the street Xmas tree, with carols and free food.
Free food!

Where in the world do you get free food? In the USA back in the Sixties you could get free food in summer in the park in Haight Ashbury, San Francisco, California - bread dyed pink? With food colouring. We hoped.

Later in several cities
we lined up for pancakes and syrup, sometimes sausages or meat. We had free breakfast in summer at towns with rodeos.

Nowadays in the UK NW London in a leafy lane near Watford a Hindu Hare krishna temple serves a free rice and curried vegetable lunch regularly. It is sponsored by a family with a celebration that week.

Nearer the shopping centres, you can get free food and drink two or three times a year in Hatch End, Pinner, Middlesex. This summer we had a street party for the Jubilee and then Royal wedding. We always look for an excuse to attract visitors in summer and winter.

So we had comedian Barry Cryer, a local resident, to speak when the Xmas lights were switched on December 6th. Then several shops in tiny Hatch End high street started serving food and drinks. Hatch end main street is the Uxbridge Road. One restaurant facade boasts a plaque to Mrs Beeton, the pioneer cookery writer, ('first kill your chicken … take a dozen eggs').

I started with a juice outside Fellinis. Then chocolates at Tanna the chemist. Chuck had a great display of lights, moving reindeer.

On to a glass of bubbly, olives and chicken canapés on sticks in the upmarket furniture store opposite Chaplins, where I met the staff who do renovations of furniture in their Stanmore workshop. They said it would cost me £100-£150 to cover a headboard. they are very proud of their covering a sofa for Mr Ross. (See the plaque about this under the Xmas tree across the road.)

On the Xmas tree side of the road a tried a free chocolate at the newly opened (late 2013) chocolate shop, Rainbeau. the Genuine Cakes shop gave me a delicious piece of vanilla cake. Then up to B and K Salt Beef bar for a slice of turkey and a small latke (potato cake). Luckily we had small portions everywhere. I still had room for a mince pie over at Robertson and Philips estate agent.
A couple of last photos of windows - the antique shop had a chef holding a bottle of wine.