Bake Sale Inspiration

Samantha Carr

The annual bake sale is almost here – we all know Angela Cressida, Town Mayor, has won for the last two hundred and fifty years and so we asked you to send in your best recipes to inspire the kitchens of Mist Ville.

          Our first inspiration comes from Theresa Edson, the witch in the black hat at the end of the lane. Her recipe for fairy cakes is delicious. We all tried them in the office, and we fought over the last one (see also – Job Vacancies).

Ingredients:

          2 duck or goose eggs

          500g of ground fairy flour

          200g of asp butter

          A teaspoon of black treacle

          A sprinkle of time dust

Recipe:

          First wash your hands, remember this is a community bake sale and we wouldn’t want to pass on anything nasty. Preheat the oven to two hundred degrees or if you’re cooking the old way, add another log to the fire. You will want to ungrease your baking tin(s) to make sure the last of the winged beasts don’t get away.

          Sieve the ground fairy flour into a large bowl – whilst doing so make sure the windows and doors are closed as some fairies are small enough to survive the grounding process. These escaped fairies can be used for decoration later – set them aside in a jar. Next, cut the butter into the flour with a knife. Do not use your hands at this stage as the asp butter is venomous until cooked.

          Theresa recommends blasting the music loudly at this stage, so the last fairy screams are drowned out although of course, we aren’t all distressed by that whining noise and the village is practically overrun with the little vermin. When the mixture resembles coarse crumbs, add the two eggs and stir vigorously. The eggs will naturally resist binding as we all know the fairy community has been quite aggressive towards the ailing bird population.

          The brew will now smell of stale socks so you will want to add the black treacle. This releases a hissing sound which transforms the odour into a bright summer’s day picnic in the park, like the ones you used to have as children, before you realised the utter pointlessness of it all. The next ingredient is the most dangerous. You must uncork the bottle of time without peeking in, many have lost their way in doing so and instead of completing their cakes, they regressed to before time existed and their only subsistence is the gloop that formed the Big Bang.

          Take a tiny sprinkle of the dust and spread it evenly throughout the mixture. You wouldn’t want someone getting too much in one bite or else they might fast forward to the end of their days. Or at least, if you did do that you might want to make sure it’s the mother-in-law who gets that slice.

          All that’s left is to pour the brew into cake tins – whatever you have on hand is fine as the recipe is so delicious no one will notice their shape whilst they fight to the death for the chance of a bite. Theresa chose gravestone bun tins as she finds them the most palatable. Bake for two to three hours, until the cake rises and then implodes leaving a black tarry residue. Leave them to cool on a tray in the moonlight – this part doesn’t make them taste better but it scares away the wolves.

          Before serving you might want to decorate them with the tiny fairy wings or baby fairies you caught earlier. This adds a real tang which isn’t to everyone’s taste, but Theresa finds it is a taste that grows on you – like the desire to kill a neighbour.

          That’s all for this week but check back next week for Molly Henderson’s witch hat cake toppers. Happy baking.