The Historic Cakes of Spitalfields

A few years ago when I went to an interesting auction of things that had been in the same family for over two hundred and fifty years, I came across and bought four volumes of handwritten recipes and household tips, which had been compiled in the house between 1890 and the end of the First World War. I was amazed at the range of information they contained: how to clean everything from marble tops and gilded picture frames to Kashmir shawls and it gave me the idea of using the kitchen area of the shop to use some of these recipes, starting slowly with cakes.  You can read an article about these recipe books in the May 2012 edition of World of Interiors and they will be on show in the shop until the end of May.

So you can now buy a cup of really good coffee or tea in the kitchen – the coffee will be made using a Kees van der Westen machine (a work of art in itself) and Italian Hausbrand coffee beans – and cakes made on the premises, some of them from old recipes and some timeless favourites: coffee and walnut cake, brownies and cupcakes, it will change daily and there will be more at weekends.  I also want to try some of the other old recipes for pickles and chutneys and maybe some of the household tips too.