It's been so long since I've dared go into one. I remember there was a time about ten years ago when they're food was gorgeous, and then it all went horribly wrong, possibly about the same time I began to cut down my meat intake.
Surprised they're even still going. I'm fairly sure the one in Hitchin bit the concrete years ago. To be replaced with a Thorntons, I seem to remember...
Oh, I'm not dissing Bakers Oven pasties in general. Their chicken and mushroom is OK, and the cheese and onion really quite nice. My one gripe is that the vegetable ones (which I only tried today) are grim.
Oh, and my other gripe is that they don't do cornedbeef pasties.
And my other one is that they don't do japs.
Ahem.
Among my many gripes are that the vegetables pasties are nasty, the cornedbeef pasties absent, requests for japs meet with blank looks and that the iced buns have terrifyingly PINK flavoured icing.
Japs seem to be a northern thing, I expected you'd have 'em in Leeds.
They're small, round cakes - bout 3" high and 3" diameter. Imagine two layers of light biscuity stuff, with very thick layer of soft halfway-between-mousse-and-cream chocolately stuff between them. Cover the whole thing with pale-coloured chocolate cream and vermicelli.
They really are quite unlike anything else, which is why I miss them. No idea why they're called japs either.
You're right about the iced buns. This one had white icing with pink stripes which were sufficiently pale I didn't notice them. They tasted cerise, though.
If you have a Greggs nearby they should do cornedbeef pasties.
Only other reference I could find online was someone referring to them in a Manchester newspaper. But I asked my Mancunian wife if she'd ever heard of them, and she hasn't either.
I've asked around and Japs do not appear to exist in Leeds, not under that name at least.....
The cloest the natives can come up with is a "wafer slice".
Sigh, unfortunetly bakers are so not allowed to a man trying to lose some weight.... one day I might get my weight back down again and be able to walk into a bakers without crying...
> They're small, round cakes - bout 3" high and 3" diameter. Imagine two layers of light biscuity stuff, with very thick layer of soft halfway-between-mousse-and-cream chocolately stuff between them. Cover the whole thing with pale-coloured chocolate cream and vermicelli.
That's a fat wagon wheel covered in bits, isn't it?
And despite my description, japs really aren't very chocolately. It's quite a faint flavour (and actually, you can get coffee ones, too). I wish someone would come and help me out describing the damn things.
Sounds suspiciously like something I was feed in Germany under the alleged name of 'Niggerkusse'(!). They had coffee flavoured ones and melted quickly in the car as I recall. Not very nice, even given the chocolate componant. Germany + national cooking expertise =no comments...though they may be of an originally Turkish origin.
Vegetable pastry products can be problematic. Too many seem to be cooked by those who are sufficiently inexperienced in the ways of vegetarian food, and indeed food in general, to really have no clue as to what vegetables go well together.
Reading service station tends to do a horrible vegetable pie, accompanied by equally horrible and entirely unsuited roast vegetables. I've had to have it a couple of times and it's the most disheartening food imaginable.
Pink flavoured icing? How pink are we talking? Because light pink icing can be nice, but from your capitalisation I'm guessing we're not talking a delicate pinky white colour here...
Not being of the vegetarian persuasion, I only tend to eat things like vegetable pie if they actually look appetising, so have so far avoided this particular evil.
The icing looked a delicate pinkywhite colour. But it tasted of... er... PINK. Sort of halfway between non-specific red-fruit esters and cheap rose flavour.
Not being of the vegetarian persuasion, I only tend to eat things like vegetable pie if they actually look appetising, so have so far avoided this particular evil.
Now that's clever of you. :) I've got to say that even as a vegetarian I try to operate on the same principle, but it isn't always possible.
I should point out in fairness that the vegetarian cafe at Avebury used to do the most fantastic mushroom and ale pie known to humankind. Their organic beers weren't bad either. They seem to go more for conventional veggie cafe fare now but still done pretty well.
The icing looked a delicate pinkywhite colour. But it tasted of... er... PINK. Sort of halfway between non-specific red-fruit esters and cheap rose flavour.
Gah! How horrible!! And there's *no* excuse for that...
I have to say I like white icing best on iced buns. Proper crisp icing too. Ah! like my parents used to buy me in Tobermory when I were a lass.
No idea, I'm afraid. Bought Millionaire's Shortbread always tastes slightly crap to me, as it never lives up to the standard of the stuff my mum bakes, so I don't buy it.
Mum's recipe for millionaire's shortbread going into your eastwick e-mail instanter. Japs are, or were, basically almond-flavoured and the "biscuity stuff" is baked in a layer, something like a cross between almond meringue and ratafia biscuits, then cut into circles which are stuck together with goo, as you say, then the whole thing is covered in goo, rolled in toasted coconut and finished off with a chocolate button on top! Recipe for those available, too, but it's a right clart to do. Spelunca
I didn't believe a word of this coconut nonsense, and a brief chat with the mother confirms that the traditional thing to roll it in is the crumbs left from cutting out the biscuit discs.
I think I've bought ones like that, or ones rolled in vermicelli.
I don't know if you're aware of this, but in America, "pasties" are things that girls put over their nipples so they can be topless legally, and look (from a distance) completely topless.
So then reading this I was wondering if some weird company decided to start making them from vegetables.
Imagine my dismay to find out you're talking about food.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 06:13 am (UTC)It's been so long since I've dared go into one. I remember there was a time about ten years ago when they're food was gorgeous, and then it all went horribly wrong, possibly about the same time I began to cut down my meat intake.
Surprised they're even still going. I'm fairly sure the one in Hitchin bit the concrete years ago. To be replaced with a Thorntons, I seem to remember...
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 06:20 am (UTC)Oh, and my other gripe is that they don't do cornedbeef pasties.
And my other one is that they don't do japs.
Ahem.
Among my many gripes are that the vegetables pasties are nasty, the cornedbeef pasties absent, requests for japs meet with blank looks and that the iced buns have terrifyingly PINK flavoured icing.
I love bakers
Date: 2004-03-04 06:42 am (UTC)But what the hell is a Jap?
And I've never really tried a corned beef pastie before.
And Iced buns should be yellow, and lemonay.
Re: I love bakers
Date: 2004-03-04 06:48 am (UTC)They're small, round cakes - bout 3" high and 3" diameter. Imagine two layers of light biscuity stuff, with very thick layer of soft halfway-between-mousse-and-cream chocolately stuff between them. Cover the whole thing with pale-coloured chocolate cream and vermicelli.
They really are quite unlike anything else, which is why I miss them. No idea why they're called japs either.
You're right about the iced buns. This one had white icing with pink stripes which were sufficiently pale I didn't notice them. They tasted cerise, though.
If you have a Greggs nearby they should do cornedbeef pasties.
Re: I love bakers
Date: 2004-03-04 06:56 am (UTC)However... japs sound extremely yummy. Mmm. That sounds like a good quest for the weekend! :)
Re: I love bakers
Date: 2004-03-04 07:00 am (UTC)Re: I love bakers
Date: 2004-03-04 07:27 am (UTC)(assuming I have any joy, of course... but I'm quite determined)
Re: I love bakers
Date: 2004-03-04 09:27 am (UTC)http://www.botham.co.uk/wordsearch.html
- a wordsearch game, with "chocolate jap" as one of the phrases. Also "ecliar" (and it's spelled that way in the letter grid too!)
Botham's are based in Whitby.
You can buy them online from India:
http://www.wengerspastry.com/shop/view_item_details.asp?CatID=35&ItemID=517&Category=PASTRIES
and there's a hint about how you might make them here:
http://www.deliaonline.com/deliaatlife/messageboard/view.asp?postid=993&topicid=8
Only other reference I could find online was someone referring to them in a Manchester newspaper. But I asked my Mancunian wife if she'd ever heard of them, and she hasn't either.
Re: I love bakers
Date: 2004-03-04 09:31 am (UTC)I don't think I'd want one after it had come from India. Not that I've anything against Indian japs, just I think it'd go off in the post.
Re: I love bakers
Date: 2004-03-04 07:19 am (UTC)The cloest the natives can come up with is a "wafer slice".
Sigh, unfortunetly bakers are so not allowed to a man trying to lose some weight.... one day I might get my weight back down again and be able to walk into a bakers without crying...
Re: I love bakers
Date: 2004-03-04 07:22 am (UTC)Oooh, no, I don't think so. Not wafery at all.
I wonder...
Re: I love bakers
Date: 2004-03-04 09:03 am (UTC)That's a fat wagon wheel covered in bits, isn't it?
Re: I love bakers
Date: 2004-03-04 09:09 am (UTC)Much nicer. Much lighter biscuit. Less jam.
And despite my description, japs really aren't very chocolately. It's quite a faint flavour (and actually, you can get coffee ones, too). I wish someone would come and help me out describing the damn things.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 12:21 pm (UTC)They had coffee flavoured ones and melted quickly in the car as I recall. Not very nice, even given the chocolate componant.
Germany + national cooking expertise =no comments...though they may be of an originally Turkish origin.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 02:21 pm (UTC)Very melty does sound about right, and to be honest I could imagine people not liking these, they are a somewhat unusual taste/texture.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 06:56 am (UTC)Reading service station tends to do a horrible vegetable pie, accompanied by equally horrible and entirely unsuited roast vegetables. I've had to have it a couple of times and it's the most disheartening food imaginable.
Pink flavoured icing? How pink are we talking? Because light pink icing can be nice, but from your capitalisation I'm guessing we're not talking a delicate pinky white colour here...
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 06:59 am (UTC)The icing looked a delicate pinkywhite colour. But it tasted of... er... PINK. Sort of halfway between non-specific red-fruit esters and cheap rose flavour.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 07:05 am (UTC)Now that's clever of you. :) I've got to say that even as a vegetarian I try to operate on the same principle, but it isn't always possible.
I should point out in fairness that the vegetarian cafe at Avebury used to do the most fantastic mushroom and ale pie known to humankind. Their organic beers weren't bad either. They seem to go more for conventional veggie cafe fare now but still done pretty well.
The icing looked a delicate pinkywhite colour. But it tasted of... er... PINK. Sort of halfway between non-specific red-fruit esters and cheap rose flavour.
Gah! How horrible!! And there's *no* excuse for that...
I have to say I like white icing best on iced buns. Proper crisp icing too. Ah! like my parents used to buy me in Tobermory when I were a lass.
*has sudden attack of feeling old...*
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 06:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 06:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 07:01 am (UTC)Any chance of a recipe ? Pretty please ?
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 07:06 am (UTC)(Assuming you mean the same stuff I do ? Shortbread, caramel stuff, chocolate ?)
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 07:18 am (UTC)That's the stuff.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 07:29 am (UTC)Come on
condensed milk at the ready
Date: 2004-03-04 07:31 am (UTC)cakes (no ale?)
Date: 2004-03-04 12:55 pm (UTC)Re: cakes (no ale?)
Date: 2004-03-05 03:26 am (UTC)I think I've bought ones like that, or ones rolled in vermicelli.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 01:36 pm (UTC)So then reading this I was wondering if some weird company decided to start making them from vegetables.
Imagine my dismay to find out you're talking about food.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 02:32 pm (UTC)What do you call what I call a pasty, then ? Do you have them ?
Sort of like a pastry envelope with stuff in ? Looks a bit like this (http://kenanderson.net/pasties/cornish.html).