Bonjour Dame Kipling

I am currently making my friend Rosalind a top mother award out of the left over remnants from Tallulah’s gay Jewish interior decorating craft project.  She is a superstar. Rosalind that is, although if Tallulah would stay in bed for more than five minutes I’d think about bestowing the title on her too.

It is Rosalind’s son’s eleventh birthday tomorrow.  He is getting a bicycle.  He does not know this yet, but he is.  He will be very happy.

He was hazy and affable over presents.  Which is always nice.

The one thing he did specify that he wanted for his birthday was a Mr. Kipling French Fancy birthday cake. 

For those of you who are not au fait with the wonders of Mr. Kipling I will explain.  Mr. Kipling is rather like J.R. Hartley from the Yellow Pages advertisements: entirely fictional.  On top of that he is a kindly, bearded gentleman who embodies some of the best qualities of the British traditions of tea and buns, and in the case of J.R. Hartley, fly fishing.

The marketing department of Mr. Kipling would have us believe that not only does he make; ‘exceedingly good cakes,’  but that he makes them by hand in his quaint Victorian kitchen, tottering about in his slippers with icing sugar drifting through his beard, rustling up tasty morsels for the vicarage tea party and the local cricket matches.  He is a marvel.  Not only that, but he is about 150 years old and still going strong.  Who said fondant icing was bad for you? They know nothing. Nothing…

It is clearly the nectar of the gods.

The fact that most elderly men of my acquaintance wouldn’t be seen dead near a stove or pink icing is by the by.  Mr. Kipling can’t get enough of baking and is a wow with individual fruit pies, lemon slices, and most importantly of all, the French Fancy.

The French, au naturellement, shudder with horror and surprise when faced with the patisserie based travesty that is the French Fancy. Observe.

The French Fancy:

A horrified Frenchman:

Where is the artistry? Hein?

Anyway, for those of us who were brought up during the great processed food glut that was the Seventies, and lived off of Findus Crispy Pancakes; Ice Magic and Angel Delight they were a wonder borne down from Mount Olympus.  Small squares of luminous yellow sponge wrapped in virulent fondant icing, the dome on top was filled with ersatz cream that gave you a sugar rush that would have you surfing for a week.

I still love ‘em.

A few years ago, for my birthday, Jason took me away for the weekend to an extremely posh hotel.  We had a suite. It had a bath at the end of the bed. I spent my birthday afternoon in the bath, eating French Fancies and watching ridiculous films. It was luxe I tell you, luxe.

Anyway, now they do these enormous individual French Fancies, as big as your head.  And this is what Rosalind’s son wanted.  After my explanation it is clear that nobody could blame him. He is merely following in the tradition of a long line of British men through the ages.  Pink patisserie is where it’s all happening these days.

This morning Rosalind and her husband had two crucial tasks to perform:

1. buy the bicycle. This was Martin’s job.

2. buy the cake.  This was Rosalind’s job.

Martin got half way to work and realised he needed petrol.  He pulled up at the petrol station and was just about to put the petrol in the car when instinct told him to check that he had his wallet.  It turned out to be a train pass. His wallet was at home.  No petrol. No bike.  He called Rosalind to say he could just get to work and back, but that was it.  He passed the bicycle shaped baton on to her.

After dropping four children at school she headed off into the wilderness known as Halfords where she efficiently bought the bike.  Feeling rather pleased with herself that she had succeeded where lesser mortals had failed, she trogged twenty minutes across town to the supermarket.  This was where it all went pear shaped.  They had sold out of French Fancy birthday cakes.

Eek!

She did not have time to walk the half hour in the other direction to see if the other supermarket had it.  Instead she has been at home all afternoon trying to reconstruct by eye, hand and the supernatural power of the maternal deities, a hand made, individually crafted, artisanal Mr. Kipling French Fancy birthday cake.  It also has to be non dairy because one of the children has allergies.

By half past two this afternoon she texted me that she was onto the icing but had lost her nerve in case it went too pink.

I’m utterly, utterly impressed that she got that far. 

It is above and beyond, truly.  It makes me feel ashamed that I merely worried about Oscar’s fairy shaped cake, drank a glass of wine and took him to the supermarket to pick a ready made one.  I am not worthy.

I know that even if she has to stay up all night, sweating away at the coal face of pink, fondant icing, she will do it, emerging sticky but triumphant.

I name her Dame. Mrs. Kipling. Knightess of the Realm.

I bow before her.

All hail.