The timeless sponge of a 92-year-old
“It only shows how well you know the recipe,” wonders Clare, watching Sue Sift Sift Sift Sugar and Flour with experienced hands. “I love a cake that you don’t have to weigh.”
The method is also a lesson in patience and gentleness. The eggs and the sugar are whispered until thick and mousse, the flour with a spring light touch. “You don’t want to beat it,” explains Sue, the mixture again and again and make sure not to lose the air. The result is two sensitive layers, which can be classified with sharp black chunks of currant and a spacious Wagn with whipped cream.
Bake through the story: from wooden furnaces to podcast kitchens
Sue kitchens wisdom is shaped by a life that has spanned continents and epochs. At 23, newly married, she left England to Kenya and traveled by ship for six weeks when the Suez crisis unfolded. “We lived in a house that had neither gas nor electricity,” she recalls. “I had to cook on a wood stove. They had to chop trees for fuel before they could even start.”
Your culinary journey also reflects the privation from Great Britain after the war. “When I started cooking shortly after the war, the ingredients were very scarce. Butter was so precious that they didn’t put it on everything. Your ration was two ounces per person per week. The only thing that was available was Margarine, a terrible kind of stuff. Olive oil was sold to chemists.”
The art of life and food alone
Now Sue’s relationship with food has subtly changed in her beloved house in her beloved house. “It’s really difficult if you live alone,” she thinks. “It made it clear to me what a social cause is a meal. You want to talk about the food and enjoy it, but it’s just you.” Nevertheless, she makes her new to most in the evening.
Your kitchen shelves are lined with well-confused cookbooks-Jane Grigson, Elizabeth David and the Constance Spry Cookery Book – To learn, experiment and share all memories of a lifetime.
A garden that is as rich as its stories
In addition to the kitchen, Sue’s Garden is a living larger. “I build tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, salad,” she says, her pride is obvious. The wine vines and the peonies, both over 50 years old, are just as part of the cottage as the shaky door. The garden, once her husband’s passion, is now being cared for with the help of a local gardener – “he is young, so he will see me,” she jokes.
A cake to bring people together
While the sponge cools down and the kettle cooks, Sue gathers her cake with the same care that she has shown all afternoon. The black currant jam is densely distributed, cream on soft peaks and the two layers laid together. “You need a pretty sharp jam,” she says, “to compensate for the sweet cream.”
The first disc is joy. “It’s so easy. The cake is delicious. And you are right with the jam – super sharp jam and sweet cream.”
In a world that reveals novelty and speed, Sue’s Kitchen offers something rarer: the certainty that some things – good cakes, good society and art to pay attention – never go out of fashion.
