Flipside: Favorite Recipe--Tea cakes, Pies and Bread, Oh My!

Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to join. I am hoping it may help me to pinpoint someone or something that I have researched and not blogged about on Flipside. AND push me to blog about family each week in 2024. Sometimes I get lazy. 😁 Let's see how well I keep up.

Week # 14 (April 1-April 7) is Favorite Recipe.

Not even a question here, West Hartlepool/Hartlepool, England baking. In 2003 when my brothers and I crossed the pond we had no idea all of the Hughes family lore, pictures and home baked goodies we would bring home.

Wonderful tea cakes were served during an afternoon tea at Mary and John Marsh's home at 23 Borrowdale Street in Hartlepool. John George Marsh is my paternal first cousin twice removed. His wife, Mary Pounder Marsh treated us to several of her cakes. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos of the delicious array sweet treats.

Mary and I corresponded by snail mail for at least a year following the trip and she shared a couple of the recipes she served that afternoon.

Mary Ann Storey Hughes
standing in front of the Hughes Green Grocer shop
cover, Reflections beneath the Wagga Moon

John Marsh grew up with his parents, Eli Marsh and Mary Alice Hughes Marsh, at 70 Florence Street, West Hartlepool, England in the home of his maternal grandparents, George Henry Hughes and Mary Ann Storey Hughes. The Marshes are listed in the electoral rolls of 1930 as residents in the Hughes household.

John's maternal grandmother and my paternal great great grandmother, Mary Ann Storey Hughes, Annie Hughes, was quite a baker. She is mentioned in the booklet, Reflections beneath the Wagga Moon. I like to think that the recipes Mary Pounder Marsh shared had been passed down to her from Mary Ann Storey Hughes to her daughter, Mary Alice Hughes Marsh to her daughter-in-law, and are the recipes my paternal great great grandmother used to sell in the shop.

In 2021, I decided to try baking a few of the recipes.

Basic Cake Recipe

One variation was adding 2 ounces of coconut to the batter

and whipped cream and toasted coconut to the top.

Another variation was to add 1 tablespoon of cocoa

and 1/2 teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda to the batter.

I only attempted the two variations of the basic cake recipe. Mary also sent me recipes for gingerbread, Bakewell tart, almond cake and a split cake with cream and jam.

P.S. Thankfully I have a wonderful friend who has lived in England her entire life and she was able to help me with some of the ingredients and oven conversions. 💖

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