Thursday 29 October 2015

Can you bake cakes in an AGA?


Things to do today:

Get wet and dusty at the same time (I think that is called 'muddy').

Deliver 4 paintings to Mary Berry's old house on the edge of the countryside. (The one with the AGA shrine).

Someone told me yesterday that it was impossible to bake cakes in an AGA. I don't believe it.

23 comments:

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    1. I am guessing by now that you know it is an elaborate and expensive version of a Victorian kitchen range.

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  2. If Mary Berry had an AGA, I am certain it could bake a cake.

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  3. Ive tweeted her ..i know she will reply

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  4. I have an Aga. People say that it is impossible to bake Christmas cakes in an Aga. I bake four every year as Christmas presents and they always turn out perfect - and I do not bake them for twenty four hours in the bottom oven as some folk try to do.
    You need an Aga cake baker. (bought from Aga), which is like a large saucepan without a handle. It has a rack inside upon which you put the cake tin (which comes with it). You put the lid on the cake baker and bake it on the bottom of the oven for one and a half to two hours until a skewer stuck in it comes out clean. Finished -perfect. (think it really steam-bakes, but never fails)

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    1. Aga always has gadgets to make it possible to do simple things, don't they? I like their toast-maker - a folding metal mesh...

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  5. I've just discovered the British Bake off show and I've been watching it this week. I love Mary Berry! And the show is wonderful!

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    1. You are not alone. I've never seen a single episode, even though I now have a T.V. licence.

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  6. I have a professional chef friend who still cooks with an AGA, cakes too. When I lived in China I had a collapsible Coleman camping oven that sat on top of the top and I baked bread. I was a very popular woman on my baking weekends.

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    1. You lived in China and married a Japanese man? This is even more impressive than baking bread on the beach.

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  7. https://youtu.be/DemplQmS0VY

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  8. I will reply to all your comments properly tomorrow - sorry, but I need to go to bed.

    Just to say that there was a very sad little story attached to my visit to the AGA shrine tonight. My friends who bought the house, bought it from Mary's mother, who lived to be 104.

    Shortly after they moved in, Mary B. turned up on a walk, so they invited her in to look at their refurbishment of the place where she used to spend so much time.

    Her old kitchen is now a small living room, but when Mary went in to look around, she said that this was the place where she, her mother and her own children would sit around for many lunches and dinners, and began to well-up with tears.

    I didn't know until tonight that one day her son drove off (aged 18, I think) to get Sunday newspapers some years ago, and never returned because he was killed in a car crash.

    Poor Mary, no wonder looking at that old room made her weep.

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    1. Still suffering the flu?
      At the risk of sounding maudlin, no parent should outlive a child, and everyone who has a child can weep for one who has.

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    2. Not really - just a bit of post-viral, Autumn tiredness.
      Yes, it must be a terrible thing to outlive your children.

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  9. We had a solid fuel Aga (coal) and we had no problems.

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    Replies
    1. I think the person that told me that you cannot bake cakes in an AGA had never used an AGA.

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  10. You went to bed before me, are you feeling all right? Are you running a delivery business?

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