Reasons why Fran isn't applying to appear on The Great British Bake-Off
When the grandchildren came round last week, we made Welsh cakes. Two years ago, we made them on holiday in Wales and they were so delicious that the children requested this repeat performance. Unfortunately, the aspect of the performance that did not get repeated was that, in Wales, I didn't transform the cakes into slabs of inedible charcoal by frying them in a cheap, thin-bottomed pan. Nevertheless, the children tried to be optimistic as, one by one, I lifted the burnt cakes from the pan with a fish slice and layered them like pieces of soot-black roof tiles on a blue flowered plate. The plate looked highly offended, being more designed for delicate cup cakes than a pile of incinerated carbohydrate. When the Welsh cakes had cooled (and hardened even more) we tried them. 'They're nice, Grandma,' the children said, biting into them gallantly but with true alarm in their wide eyes like those facing a zombie invasion or firing squad. The only consolati...