Your Views

Keep your e-mails pouring in, it's good to know that there are lots of you out there with views and opinions.

To help you work out what is what, are now little icons to help you see biscuit related themes. And now you can see at a glance which are the most contested subjects via this graph (requires Flash 6.0 plugin).

Please keep your mails coming in to nicey@nicecupofteaandasitdown.com

If you like, you can use this search thingy to find stuff that matches with any of the icons you pick, or use the fantastic free text search, Yay!

Type some key words here to search the feedback section

Your e-Mails

John	Dear Mr Nicey After our recent kitchen refurbishment, we sat down, found the plughole for the kettle and then had a nice cup of tea. That said, it should come as no surprise that the upheaval resulted in some things becoming displaced i.e. lost. The most valuable item in our erstwhile kitchen was your building instructions for a fruit cake. I used to make lots of these for the sheer joy on all the faces of all the lucky scoffers. (One face each, of course) I wanted to make another to continue in the joyous tradition (re. scoffers) In desperation (well, feeling a bit miffed), I looked on NCOTAASD to find the instructions again. BUT 404 Page not found.Oh Dear. Miffness has turned back to despair ! The thought of unhappy non-scoffers makes my heart very heavy and I was wondering whether you might have some of that traditional English never-kick-a-man-when-he's-down (NKAMWHD), all-pull-together (APT) kindheartedness in you and assure me that I may somehow see again that ground (not teeth)- breaking set of plans for the building of the aforementioned. Do please let me know that your able to help (re. NKAMWHD and APT)) In earnest John
	Nicey replies: John, As you can see I have colossally slack having not updated NCOTAASD for some six years or something. However, this has rightly put me on the spot so I have sorted it out and the cake recipe is once again gracing the internet. To be honest I was in a similar predicament a while back although it was all of my own making. Wifey insisted that we got a new kitchen and not long after it went in I built a NCOTAASD fruit cake in it - the christmas variant of (soak all the fruit in booze for a couple of days and add another spoonful of mixed spice and some nuts (..and wrap the whole lot up in jam/marzipan/royal icing)). I resorted to a back up of the recipe, but was annoyed that I couldn't just go to online. Well now we all can. Hoorah for you telling me to sort it out. Best Nicey
Chris Bowen	Hi Nicey, As Which seem to have got the mince pie survey side of Christmas covered this year will you be doing a group stollen test so that we can make informed purchasing decisions in that market during the forthcoming festive season? I seem to recall that you have floated the idea in the past... Cheers Chris Bowen
	Nicey replies: Chris you're right. I did make a special noise last night next to the stollen's in Tesco. I think this idea might have finally come of age as I have found myself gainfully employed once more which means I have many new work mates on which to road test such large tea time treats and therefore up the cake review bandwidth.
Barry Nield Malted Milk Review	Hi Nicey With a new baby due imminently, we've been making all the necessary preparations for the birth (rusks etc). At an ante-natal class we were given a list of things to take to hospital. This included the item: "favourite biscuits." I'm sure like most of your readers, we have different favorites for different situations. I wonder if you have any suggestions what would be suitable? Presumably it's got to be good biscuit in a crisis -- something that offers plenty of energy in case of a long labour, but not one that will melt all over the bed sheets in the warmth of a hospital. Many thanks Barry
	Nicey replies: Hello Barry, Well it sounds like you are already on top of most of the important aspects of biscuit selection, although I would say crumbs are another aspect to keep in mind. What ever you bring along will probably be very welcome. To be honest I seem to remember that it was me who ate all the biscuits as Wifey wasn't really in a biscuit mood. I also seem to recall that I went out on a limb and brought Cadbury's Chocolate fingers, a very non-standard biscuit for us. Thinking about it rationally and with hindsight I would have probably gone for some fig rolls, malted milks and possibly a small pack of digestives, although modern post-hydogenated fat Digestives are very crumbly. However, something that shouldn't be overlooked was the on tap supply of NHS tea and toasted sliced white with Golden Shred marmalade that was available when the YMOS made their debut. I recent years we have taken to baking large NCOTAASD fruitcakes for our friends when the have their own younger members of staff. In fact Mr ad Mrs T are due YMOS No 2 in about 6 weeks time and Mrs T is already making space in her cake tin. Another thing to watch out for is that fact that post birth you'll be all over the show and may well not be entirely capable of making rational biscuit choices due to excitement, warm fuzzy feelings, lack of sleep and confusion as the Wife sends you out to buy all sorts of strange things you've never heard of before down aisles of the supermarket you didn't even know existed.
John Dolan Tunnocks Tea Cake Review	Dear Nicey, Your lovely website has caused quite a stir here at the University of Cambridge. We were wondering if you could settle a long-standing argument and help us find out which chocolate tea cakes were the ones which had a bit of jam in them? One of our Scottish staff proudly announced that it was Tunnock's, but the evidence on your site disproves this. Another colleague reckons it was Burton's but they no longer have the bit of jam, another swears that is was Marks & Spencer's own brand but they also no longer contain the jam for some reason, possibly the egg white / gelatine makeup of the mallow. We would dearly love to source a supply of any tea cakes which still contain the jam, irrespective of manufacturer, egg white/gelatine mallow or real/imitation chocolate casing. It's the jam that's important to us historians. Best wishes, John
	Nicey replies: Well I had a lovely bike ride through the collages the other day so if you had spotted me you could have asked me then. Burton's definitely have red goo inside them I wouldn't exactly call it jam I've always thought of it as part of an alliance which includes the red stuff that goes on top proper ice creams. Having said that you don't see that as often as you used to. I haven't had a Burton's for a little while now but did look at a pack the other day and it still depicted jam in them. Lee's a Scottish brand also definitely has jam in them too. I have never encountered a Tunnocks tea cake with jam in it and personally as I said in the review I don't see that it is possible, but would happily be proved wrong.
Joan McSwiggan	Hello Nicey, I have just discovered your website.I can't believe it ! I am the world's biggest fan of tea,cakes and biscuits. My partener recently had his 50th. birthday.We decided to have a garden party. We had an urn, supplying endless hot water for mugs of tea. On top of that we had mountains of scones, clotted cream and home made jam, as well as platters of cupcakes. Everyone was blissfully happy. (P.S. Yorkshire tea rules.) Joan.
	Nicey replies: Joan, Thank you for that lovely picture of the cup cakes. It sounds like a charming event. And talking of small cakes and tea urns. Wifey and I manned the tea and cake stall at the school fair last Friday and that little lot would have traded at 20p each which at rough first count comes to £22.80. Unfortunately due to some bad planning and people neglecting to write SOLD on some of the cakes we did manage to sell a few twice, although both Wifey and I were prepared to fight our corner if Sir Alan dragged us into the board room.
	More >>