Financial gain from being a Goy member !

Well done bjs

What a great surprise- International fame at last!

That's great. I've often Googled plants and GOY pictures come up a lot. Autograph please :)

I'm glad fame has caught up at last. It is well deserved. I am so pleased, as I am sure all other Goy members will be, that you got a nice windfall from doing what you enjoy. You give us all a lot of pleasure with your regular blogs especially with the added extras. I wonder if my brother still has the half tin size biscuit box which my mother used for the Christmas cake. It was a deep rich cake and had an inch of marzipan on top before being iced with a now rarely used Royal icing. She used another half size box to send my brother and his pals home baked Hardtack (a sweet tray bake) once a month when they were stationed out on Christmas Island. Were or are Wagon wheels made by that Westons? They reappered in the shops recently after an absence of years. I'm sure they have shrunk. I take it you still have 'Mauve Mist' in your collection. Don't spend it all in one shop as your mum would say. I think we should all say a big thank you to eagle eyed Sue for recognising the quality of your work.

We shop at Great Canadian Superstore all the time Bjs. We are heading over tomorrow morning. I will be looking for the primula labels next spring.
Congratulations.

Klahanie
I was waiting for your comment it seems so huge thought you must have some contact with it, do they have very large garden centres attached.
Snoopdog they would not be a problem to grow from seed but being a hybrid it is unlikely they would breed true.
Sheila yes I have, will root a few more in spring,
what's the difference with royal icing, remember mum added lemon juice to icing.

Its good that you still have it. Did your hybrid Jamie survive? Royal icing is made using egg whites beaten up with icing sugar. It went out of favour when Edwina Curry broke the news that salmonella was perhaps present in eggs. In its place the shops started selling ready to roll or ready rolled icing suitable for icing large fruit cakes but also suitable for using on sponge cakes. This did not go hard as Royal icing did but has a softer texture. The lemon juice was added to the RI when it was being made. The ready to use icing is similar to icing named Australian icing. I used to use it for making flowers and other shapes for decorating cakes. It uses glycerine as the wet igredient.

Congratulations Brian I'm not at all suprised you do come up with some amazing photos .. :o))

At least they were courteous enough to ask and pay, rather than just assume that any pic online was free to use.

*s* did they say that the photo would be credited, on the back of the label, maybe also with a url to the online pic? spead your feame (and GoY's by assoication!)

hmm, maybe we could have a GoY Photo Agency??

I vaguely rememebr Royal Icing from a family wedding, years ago. I seem to remember that it's very hard

Fran they did say they were unable to credit the photo, it does not bother me as it could lead to all sorts of requests.

Well done Brian ...
'photographer extraordinaire' ;o)

Well done Brian great to get such a response about your fab photos do you remember biscuits called Ayton biscuits, they were triangle shaped with bottom half covered in chocolate they were like bourbon creams but really tasty with chocolate cream centre mmmmmm. could go with one now! well done again x

Anci
yes do remember them but long forgotten,
its strange what one remembers when the memory is prompted.
For some years now the first cup of tea is accompanied
With two Hobnobs chocolate one for me plain one for Jamie, he is allowed to sit on the bed to eat it with me then back down stairs. Ritual!
B

Bjs, Great Canadian Superstore has a decent garden section.

Well done Brian. We have known your plant photos are brilliant for years. :0)

Well done you, I'm going to look at all your wonderful pics when I have the time:-)

Delighted for you and so glad that your talent has been recognised both far and wide :-))

Royal icing - well for me the main difference is that its nice to eat whereas the other stuff I can't stand. Royal icing doesn't go hard if its beaten for five minutes and allowed to stand so that the bubbles disappear. If I'm given cake with the other stuff on it it gets left on the side of the plate.

Congratulations Bj! Well done!

Well done Bj!!!!

Stera Royal icing does eventually go like cement which is why the top tier of a wedding cake needs to be re iced for a christening. I do not like the other stuff much either but I must admit it is not nearly as difficult or at least needs less skill to manipulate than the Royal icing. Another problem is that you cannot pipe with it. I needed both types of icing for my recent wedding cake efforts.

Scotsgran
Winter nights are a time for memories and you prompted Christening cakes.in the first year of my apprentiship 1953 as a tinsmith and coppersmith one of my jobs was to make cake tins to suit the individual size of the top tier cake for airtight storage (no plastic airtight boxes then) but my calculations on depth were invariably out meaning I had to trim a thin slice off the bottom to get the cake in before putting the top on and soldering to make airtight. It went down a treat with a mug of tea, and I never got caught.lol

Agreed its easier but what's the point if you can't eat it? I would rather do without and just have the marzipan!

My OH is with you 100% Stera but I like a wee bit of icing with lots of marzipan. Lol Brian I thought when I first read this that you were referring to cutting a bit off the tin not a slice off the cake. I wonder how many happy couples you toasted with tea and cake over the years. My mother put her cakes in a tin and sealed them in with candlewax. They were made around Easter time and given a good dose of whisky before being popped back in the tin in which they were baked, wrapped in fresh greaseproof paper. Today was lovely and sunny but when it started raining about 4pm the temperature dropped rapidly. I think that was a foretaste of winter. I do hope you were too far north to be much bothered by the winds and flooding. It sounded as if Stera and Hywel were in its path so I hope everyone is okay.

Scotsgran that only lasted the first year of my working, I move on to more advanced things then

I think we were both worried Scotsgran, but it passed us both by thank goodness. Had to laugh about cutting the bottom off the cakes - Let hope they didn't go dry without the firmer base! I bet you made that top tin shallower with an eye to tea time BJS...

WOW! VERY LOVELY:-0))

No doubt Bjs passed his cutting skill on to the next apprentice so he could keep getting cake.

didn[t it use to be tradtion that the top tier of the wedding czke was saved for hte first child's christening? if so, it'd need to keep very well!

It should do - but my friend's turned out to have gone mouldy - embarrassing for her at a christening party! They must have forgotten to put enough brandy in it.

Fran it should be kept with the icing and marzipan still on the cake. It is then sealed in the smallest tin that it will fit into. My mother always used candle wax to seal the join. When the cake is needed the icing and marzipan are replaced with fresh decoration. As Steragram said it will be well doused with brandy before it is put away. That is done by turning the cake upside down and poking the base all over with a knitting needle (a skewer) then generous amounts of brandy are poured over. No doubt Bjs got the best of the cake.
How are the preparations coming along for the move.

Fran
yes it was tradition back then, I am talking nearly 60 years ago.
I was not involved with this but a friend also at that time a tin smith had the job of soldering a steel casket with corpse inside for transporting by ship to the USA for burial, no jet airliners crossing in hours then.
B

that's interesting, wonder if it's still done these days? lol saving the top layer of cake, not soldering corpses in tin boxes!!

had to put hte move back another fortnight, Stera - bloke who was going to do the heavy stuff is down with flu. still, I should be in before Christmas - not sure which yaer!!

Yes to the cake Fran and when a friend died on holiday in Romania he had to be brought back to the UK in a sealed lead coffin. I never thought of the person having to do the sealing.
Sorry to hear you are still having problems transferring to your new home.

PMd you Fran. what a funny thread this is, photos to cakes to corpses....

LOL its all about expenses.

thanks, Stera, got it!

lol I do like "rambling" threads, sort of "that-reminds-me" diversions, so long as we come back to the main theme every now and then - if the original thread-poster doesn't mind, of course!

Nice work Brian! Beautiful coloured primula. :) so nice to be appreciated!