My plan to make lots of things from Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer this year didn't quite come off, did it? ;) But, you know, there are lots of years ahead to have a go at a few of the recipes. And, having seen that today (and the rest of the week) was going to be in the 30s, Gabe and I thought we'd have a go at making Marilla's Zero-alcohol Raspberry Cordial.

And, unlike the Holiday Lemonade, it's been a great success! We used frozen raspberries as fresh ones are too expensive and we've diluted it with carbonated mineral water. It's really delicious - highly recommended. It tastes much, much better than raspberry cordials from the supermarket, whereas Holiday Lemonade really wasn't up there with the fizzy stuff on the shelves!

Here's a photo of our raspberry cordial:



Very nice out in the backyard on a hot day!

I haven't baked anything from Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer yet – switching on an oven and trying to keep the house cool in the amazing temperatures we've been having simply don't mix! I was, however, going to try making another drink – Marilla's Zero-Alcohol Raspberry Cordial. However, you need 600g raspberries and that makes it expensive – far cheaper to buy a bottle of Cascades Raspberry Cordial, which is very nice. Strawberries, however, are very cheap at the moment and I wonder if the same recipe could be followed for to make strawberry cordial? Anyone know? I had thought of going to one of those pick-your-own-raspberries places, to see if I could get 600g cheaply, but it's too damned hot to pick fruit right now.

I wish the book had also included a recipe for Marilla's High-Alcohol Currant Wine. What an oversight! 

Yesterday Gabe and I made our first treat from Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer - Holiday Lemonade, meant to be served on a hot day. Well, today was predicted to be a hot day (and ended up hotter, I am sure, than predicted), so we gathered the required number of lemons from our backyard and began. There was an instant snag when I realised we didn't have enough sugar (only four measly sachets of sugar in the house). Might as well do the supermarket shop and get sugar then, I thought. We got as far as the car port - I was about to drive off when an enormous huntsman (a big, hairy spider) ran across the windscreen. *shudders at memory* 

So out we got: the spider was outside the car, on the front passenger side door. That was good. Then we both blinked and lost it. That was bad. Where was it? We couldn't see it anywhere. Had it got in? I couldn't bear the thought of driving with that ruddy great thing somewhere, so we walked to the local milk bar for the sugar; the rest of the supermarket shopping could wait. Gabe, who's been reading Secret Seven books  and listening to Famous Five dramatisations during his holidays, referred to the incident as "beastly" and advised me to "buck up", proving he's been spending time in Blytonville ...

Anyway, we got the sugar; we made the lemonade; and got very messy squeezing lemons pulp, pips and all into a jug. Twenty-four hours later, we poured ourselves glasses. 

My verdict: Bitter. *Thinks - our lemons tend to be on the bitter side. I'd better add extra sugar next time to compensate*

Gabe's verdict: Yuck. I thought it would taste like lemonade from the supermarket. Will the ginger beer we make be this bad?

Grant's verdict: Nothing wrong with this. Exactly how I expected it to taste. *After diluting it a little - sensible chap* 

One of my Christmas presents (from my mom, who was most surprised when I requested this book, given my general lack of interest in domesticity!) was Jane Brocket's Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer, a book of recipes based on food eaten in children's fiction from the late 19th century to the mid 20th century. I know this has been bagged by many girlsowners (and yes, it does contain some kidlit clangers – Antonia Forest wrote dozens of school stories? If only!), but I really enjoyed it. The majority of the recipes come from Enid Blyton books, which is fine with me, but I think that was one of the criticisms I've read on GO or elsewhere; that it didn't cover a wider range of authors. But I'm happy to have a wide range of Blyton recipes to try once I have a go at making some of the treats in this book. Aunt Fanny's Treacly, Sticky Ginger Cake sounds terrific!

Because I do intend (no; it's New Year's Eve nearly, I resolve) to have a go at some of these. I haven't baked anything since I gave up domestic science at school at age 13ish, and sometimes I feel guilty that my seven-year-old son has never come home to the wonderful smell of baking. (Having said that, we are in five-minute walking distance to a marvellous bakery, so cakes aren't so far away.) But we've never made anything together either, and I feel a bit bad about that as well. So I thought these recipes could be something we'd work on together, and he's very keen to do this.

I was pleased to encounter a couple of Australian recipes in the book, including Melbourne Morning Tea Walnut Cake and Seven Little Australians' Damper.  I'm going to begin either today or tomorrow  with something very simple – Holiday Lemonade, to make use of the many lemons on our two lemon trees and to provide something refreshing for the next hot day. Then I'm determined to try the cakes, maccaroons, etc and produce something for my real-life writing group, my real-life GO book club, and even perhaps the School Council when it's my turn to provide supper.

The book includes a couple of references to milk bars and dairies; Jane Brocket talks about the Five Find-Outers going for ices at a dairy, and says this is like a milk bar. Yet I never heard the term dairy or milk bar used in England in my 33 years growing up there, whereas Australia has milk bars and New Zealanders call their equivalent a dairy! Is/was milk bar a southern thing in England? Though I never encountered it when living in London. Anyone know?

Finally, where do people shelve this book? I can't work out whether it should go in the kitchen with the recipe books or in the study with all my old children's books.