My parents were talking about their younger days (about 40-50 years back I'd say) and about a lady who used to bake "saffron cake"

I've done some googling (other search engines are available) and discovered its an old Cornish recipe obviously using saffron.

The trouble is I'm struggling to find a picture of it so I have no real idea what it should look like, be like or taste like....

Has anyone even heard of it before?

I'm guessing its a bit like a fruit cake but don't know if it should be really dry, hard, soft, moist etc....

Thanks Steve

Just found a site showing some but they look more like fruit loaf than cake ! Also one looks very yellow (as you would expect with saffron) but another looks more or less like a normal fruity bread loaf.

This is going to be fun.. my dad is a bit fussy and if its not spot on, just as he remembers it (even if he remembers it incorrectly...lol ) he's going to tell me.... lol

Steve

As I always try to do when finding out how to make something new I look on lots of different sites to get a basic average of what the recipe is/should be. One site says add "100g/3?oz Quark"... WHAT ?

Steve

As I said I'm no baker but some of the methods for making it seem rather long winded for what basically looks like a fruit loaf!

Leaving milk over night with saffron in,

mixing yeast and butter into a cream, then rubbing into flour and allow to prove ????? (it then says make into an dough mix)

and a whole host of different and odd ways...

To me it looks like the desired affect can be achieved with my usual cake mix (what do you mean usual Steve I thought you said you don't bake?.. ok the only cake type of thing I have ever bothered to work out lol).

my usual cake mix -

1 coffee mug of marg, mixed/creamed with

1 coffee mug of sugar (I don't own any weighing scales !)

Add 2 coffee mugs of self raising flour

1-2 eggs

and around 1/2 to 1 cup of milk (depending on how dry the flour is, making a solid but sloppy mix)

push/pour into a baking tin, medium oven until browned (and sounding hollow when tapped)

To this I can add any amount of fruit, chocolate, lemon marmalade etc and it always seems to work out well...

so I'm guessing adjust this with saffron in the milk and plain flour with a sachet of powdered yeast should give me something like I'm supposed to get...

does that seem fair or am I breaking all the baking rules and it won't work ?

Steve

Steve, I will ask at the BBC message boards, there are many bakkers there from world over, someone might know. It doesn't open until past 9 am, so I will do it after I return from from my dail swim.

Mamta

Hi Steve,

Quark is something typically german or east european. Most non-german people say it is a kind of cheese, it is made with milk and you bring it to a certain temperature and add some buttermilk. Now you leave it for up to 48 hours standing in the kitchen. It will get a bit sour. Then you pour this mixture throug muslin and leave it there until it has the right consistence (I?ve somewhere a recipe, can?t find it at the moment). Where are you living? 10 years ago I bought it at sainsbury in england. Sometimes you add it like yogurth to a cake dough.

Catrin

Just found an explenation on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(cheese)

Thanks Mamta, I think one of the recipes I was looking at was posted on the BBC website !

Thanks Catrin, I'm in the UK, might take a look in that supermarket... however several of the recipes don't mention using it at all !

Steve

I've been doing yet more searching and doing a little putting 2 and 2 together I think the "quark" would be more likely to be "clotted cream" if the recipe is of Cornish origins. It makes sense that some cooks/bakers/chefs might want to make their recipe a little richer and add something. As Cornwall is famed for clotted cream and it would be the obvious thing to use. The same way someone in a region with lots of red wine might add it to a beef stew or somewhere famed for honey might have lots of things with honey added...

Steve

I thought I'd seen a recipe in one of my little books for this, and I was right!

The blurb says it's a "simple, no-yeast version" which suggests that traditionally it's yeast based; my version reads pretty much like your general cake mix, with saffron, currants, sultans and mixed peel added.

I'm curious how it compares to the yeast version though; I've not really come across cakes using yeast before (hmm... maybe I need to try out a yeast-based cake recipe!)

Thanks Ganders its getting even more complicated now....

basically I'm looking at a more bread fruit loaf than cake type product which would seem to be why its yeast based and not bicarb or eggs and sugar.

The only problem I have now is the recipe that my parents had theirs from (ie the one used the the person they knew) would be that persons own version of a theme. So like you and I they would add things, leave things out, use different methods to create what they wanted. This means I could follow 20 recipes exactly as shown and create 20 different loafs/cakes and still find that its now how my parents remembered.

There is also the fact that I could make the exact same recipe using the same flour, marg/butter etc and it comes out 100% exactly the same as the ones they use to be given but as there taste buds have changed, the things they are used to eating and what they might have just had etc is different it will affect the taste and how they perceived it !

Here's hoping....

Steve

ps I've been shopping today and bought a set of scales !!!