Sunday, September 23, 2012

Cinnamon Sugar


One of my favourite night-time snacks as a child was cinnamon toast.  My Mum used to make this for my brother and I when we got home from seeing a concert.  Mum loved classical music and used to take us to hear the Perth Symphony Orchestra at the Concert Hall.  My Dad worked away a lot so it was always just the three of us heading out in Mum’s Ford Consul into the city for a night out.  

I wasn’t so interested in the music, but I really liked the dressing up part, usually a long dress or ankle length velvet skirt and my little fur handbag (it was the 70s), and feeling very grown up.  I also enjoyed the spectacle of it all, particularly at Proms concerts as you got to throw streamers at the end, and the people watching part, but the music was kind of lost on me.  I think the only time I really got into the music was when Mum took us to see a West Indian steel drum band and I got up onto the stage and danced, much to the embarrassment of my brother.  Give me something with a beat any day. 

Anyway, these soirees always ended with cinnamon toast.  The three of us would stand around the kitchen eating cinnamon toast and discussing the evening’s events.  To this day, whenever I taste or even smell cinnamon sugar, I am immediately transported back to those evenings.


A nice use of cinnamon sugar is on top of a traditional tea cake.  There are loads of tea cake recipes around so I won’t repeat one here.  


All you need to do is brush the top of a tea cake with melted butter, mix equal quantities of cinnamon and sugar together and then sprinkle over the top.  Instant childhood memory. 



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