Thursday, 3 July 2025

The Good and the UPF

 The contrast between the good and the weird.

From a couple of weeks ago........... a home made quiche - very rough looking shortcrust pastry case - my pastry cases would never win a prize -  filled with  vegetables (onion, peppers, sweetcorn, peas and tomato) and cheese, egg and milk. Because it had so much filling it fed me for 5 days rather than 4 which is good - no thinking needed.

And the Weird ........the cheap 53p sponge mix from Asda that I'd seen mentioned as a good bargain. It doesn't appear online either in ' Baking' or 'Just Essentials' but it was on the shelves in store. .


The ingredients seem to be mainly flour, sugar and oils with some complicated raising agents.


How can this small amount possible make a cake I wondered and would it be edible with only an egg and water added? Only one way to find out.

This is what it looked like, using 6 inch cake tins as specified. I mixed up a small amount of buttercream icing and the very last from a jar of strawberry jam made two years ago for a filling. 


Tried a slice (⅛ )with my afternoon cuppa - it was edible but a slightly artificial taste although lighter and fluffier than my home made sponges which always seem to come out more solid than light. Useful as an occasional  quick and  cheap  tummy filler I guess or a cheap way to make sponge for an old fashioned trifle.
It actually tasted better on day two for some reason, not sure how dry it will be by day 8!.


Tennis news...........................There were 4 British men playing yesterday, all predicted to lose which wasn't surprising considering they were playing people seeded much higher, especially Oliver Tarvet playing Alcaraz, although he put up a good fight . But Cam Norrie played really well and beat Tiafoe.
(I'd scheduled this post and switched off the lap top before Arthur Fery played so he might have been a winner. ) I don't take much notice of women's tennis as you can tell!

Weather news........cooler but Mid Suffolk missed out on heavy rain with just a few showers, water butts now empty. I'll be using mains water for watering for the foreseeable as there's no rain forecast for a week at least.


Back Tomorrow

8 comments:

  1. Gosh, that's a quiche and a half. I always said I didn't like quiche - but here we are talking the horrid flat tasteless efforts they call quiche in the supermarkets. When I make them at home, they are great! Good to get so many meals from so few ingredients. SO much healthier too.

    The cake turned out well. I could never make sponges until in my 50s I tried Hugh Fearley-Whittingstall's weight of an egg recipe and have never looked back.

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  2. That looks a very good quiche. I like the way a quiche will come out of the oven all brown and risen and then slowly sinks as the air gets to it.

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  3. Your quiche looks good and nice to have meals for several days. My pastry always looks rustic too but it shows it's homemade!
    Penny

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  4. There's no comparison between home made (or small batch from excellent coffee shop in local town) and supermarket slabs! Yours looks delicious 😋

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  5. I think your quiche looks fabulous. Proper food unlike the sad, pale, cheap supermarket versions. As for the sponge, those ingredients put me right off. I'd rather have a not so pretty home-made one any day. We've reached the point where we ask in cafes whether they make their cakes. If they buy them in we don't bother.

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  6. That quiche looks lovely. Mmm
    I also tend to watch more men’s tennis, but have come back in the last few years to watching women’s tennis as well. But I’m fairly selective! I do like those players who put heart and soul into the game.
    Sonay Kartel’s two matches have been great, ditto Emma Raducanu.
    Am also enjoying the range of coverage on i-player. J’nan

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  7. Your quiche looks delicious and so great that it lasted for so many meals!

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  8. Your quiche looks absolutely delicious. I gave up making sponge cakes long ago as mine always turn out like pancakes, so any sponge that rose would be more than acceptable to me.

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