Newcastle upon Tyne Unitarians have quite a number of enthusiastic bakers. Every year we hold an Easter Miscellany Service, in which members of the congregation bring along their own contributions, such as music, poems, readings or their own pieces of writing, and this year we had a baking theme. All contributions were linked to cakes and bakes in some form, such as exploring the history of fruit cake in the UK, especially Simnel Cake, and traditional baked Easter treats from around the world.

Sadly we had to meet mainly on Zoom this year, so although we couldn’t share our baking in person, we showed them on Zoom and shared them with friends and family. We had truly international ambitions this year, with a Torta della Nonna (Italian Grandmother’s Tart – a lemon custard baked with nuts in a pastry case), Italian polenta cake (a dense cake made with ricotta and flavoured with lemon, topped with orange caramel and orange slices), Mexican capirotada (a kind of bread pudding using up stale bread slices, which are soaked with a cinnamon and clove syrup, then baked with raisins and cheese, in this case Red Leicester – yep – cheese!) and Spanish Tarta de Santiago (a medieval Galician tart of a pastry base with a quince paste filling and almond sponge topping).

Many of these have Christian significance too – in capirotada for instance, the bread represents the Body of Christ, the syrup his blood, cinnamon sticks the wood for the cross, cloves the nails on the cross and the melted cheese the Holy Shroud. For me, and I’m sure many of us bakers, any religious meaning aside, the true significance of baking is a chance to share time with dear family and friends as well as recall beloved absent relatives and shared recipes. And this coming together means all that much more now given the restrictions of the past two years. Happy baking! (And eating, obviously.)”

Diana Bebby