PIGGY CAKES TELLING PORKIES

Calling her cakes names like Robin tarts, Pig tarts and Paradise slices has landed baker Val Temple in trouble with her local Trading Standards. The 60 year old grandmother and cakemaker who runs a bakery in Weymouth, Dorset was stunned when council officials ordered her to rename some of her most popular cakes as their names were “misleading” to customers. The offending cakes include Piggy tarts and Robin tarts (fun little cakes which have little sugar paste pigs and robins on top of them) and Paradise slice (a slice containing almonds, sultanas and cherries). The council’s argument is that Piggy tarts don’t contain pig, Robin tarts don’t contain the red breasted bird! and Paradise slices don’t come from Paradise!

Val says she has been making the popular cakes which are different and fun, for over 20 years and has never had any complaints from either customers or Trading Standards until now. Val has now changed the names of the Robin and Piggy tarts to Novelty cakes and Paradise slice to Almond, Fruit and Nut slice but says that customers still call them by their original names. Council officials insist that they were right to step in as customers have a right to know what is in food. That’s all very well but this just sounds like bureaucracy gone mad! With so many British delicacies ambiguously named, liked spotted dick (a pudding containing currants) and Toad in the Hole (yorkshire pudding with sausages) – who knows which will be the next one to come under scrutiny! Val’s bemused customers have suggested that she should create a new cake in honour of the petty council officials and name it, “Nutty as a Fruitcake!”