It’s Only a Victoria Sponge

It was a Monday night and at the Youth Group we were attempting to make a Victoria Sponge. Not an onerous task you might think and not worthy of starting World War III over. Sadly ten teenagers begged to differ.

The trouble started almost at once when they decided that they would rather make Chocolate Cake. I tried to reason with them that the Victoria Sponge decision had been taken with their full support many weeks ago. “I wasn’t there that day” one whined “P. must have made that decision. Why does she always get her own way? It’s just so unfair.”

“Because life’s unfair.” I almost spat but then stopped myself. “We only have ingredients for Victoria Sponge and if you are going to keep on arguing you may as well all go home because I don’t have the patience for it.” was what I actually said. At this there were a few nervous laughs as they hoped that I was only joking. I assured them that I was not joking and, after some persuasion they finally helped in the cake making effort. When I say helped, I have never seen eggs broken and added to the mixture through a small hole in the bottom of the shell and have also never seen such a lacklustre effort made to cream a mixture. All this went on under the malevolent glare of a few of the girls, still unhappy, standing at the door of the kitchen with their arms crossed defiantly. If they were hoping to see some sorrow in my face they were disappointed.

Soon the cake was ready for the oven and in it went, with cries of “It doesn’t look right”. “You’ve ruined it.” and many more I have erased from my memory.

Despite all the valiant hopes of the youngsters that the Victoria Sponge that was not a Chocolate Cake would be ruined thereby giving them some small measure of vindication, it popped out of the oven 20 minutes later no less than perfect. You might think that that would be the end of our woes, but sadly it was not to be.

The traditional method of filling and topping of a Victoria Sponge is jam in the middle and icing sugar on top. Generations will testify to the unblemished nature of this method and the exquisite taste therein. However, for the sake of my teenagers I was prepared to use whatever filling and topping they desired. Somewhat naively I considered this to be a good ploy. Of course I didn’t count on the fact that 10 teenage girls are not readily going to come to a unanimous decision. Not knowing the meaning of the word unanimous probably also doesn’t help.

“We can fill it with jam” I started “ but I’ve also got skooshy cream and chocolate spread so we….”

“Eurgh it’s not Nutella” said one “I’m not eating that.”

“OK, I’ll put it away so what will we do then?”

“We should use jam” said another starting to enthusiastically dump dollops of jam all over the cake and spread it in.

“That’s not fair” a small voice wailed “I’m allergic to jam and she always gets what she wants and I never do”.

This may of course have been “It’s just so unfair” from earlier on but I forget.

“But it’s got to be jam” said the enthusiastic spreader of the sticky stuff.

“Well I don’t like it, and I also don’t like Chocolate spread or cream so that means I can’t have any. It’s just (you will now be able to fill in the blanks).

Her cries were then taken up by all ten girls each arguing with one another about what should or should not go on the cake and the reasons for each thing meaning the ruination of the cake for each individual. Eventually I cut through their cries, but not with the jammy knife because that would just have been messy.

“Right, that’s enough” I said. “I’ve had it up to here with you lot. I’m going to take the cake into work tomorrow and give it to people who will appreciate it since you certainly don’t. Out of my way”. As I bore down on the cake the opinions of the girls remarkably gelled as one as if exposed to extra strong jam making pectin.

“OK” they said, and I could see real fear in their eyes “we’ll eat it ourselves”. At that all thoughts of allergies and personal dislikes were miraculously lost and the cake was reduced to a few paltry crumbs in less than five minutes. It was a truly remarkable transformation.

After that they went home and I thank singledom that I don’t have to take one home myself.

The best quote of the night came at the end from one of the girls in the older group who had been watching their antics and stuck her head round the door as they were leaving and said “You guys suck”!

On the basis of Monday night’s performance I was very inclined to agree.

Fresh Faces and Sticky Paws

Sometimes I just love the synchronicity. I’m working at the moment with two quite different groups of girls within our Youth Group, I’m doing Cookery and, oh joy, they both want to do something involving chicken. This makes my job very much easier when negotiating the aisles at Asda. If these girls had any inkling whatsoever that they had caused my life to be made easier they would at once have changed their minds so I won’t be letting on any time soon.

I have been working in and around Youth Groups since I officially ended my tenure as a youth myself. In my local community there has always been a strong emphasis on promoting activities for teenagers so the natural progression for me was to work as a youth group leader as soon as I was old enough. I have put on plays with youth drama groups, made the most delicious messes in numerous kitchens, eaten myself silly at sleepovers and taken trips to places like Alton Towers. How else could an adult do these things without fear of ridicule.

Of course this is not the only reason that I do it. There are of course some people who would beg to differ but I feel that it is vitally important to support and help the youth of any community. Kids these days (as at any time) face enormous challenges, whether it be something such as their best friend falling out with them or problems with parents. To have someone other than a parent or a teacher who they feel that they can talk to or who simply takes an interest in them can make all the difference.

I admit that sometimes all the good feelings can be forgotten when you have a group of 20 screaming teenagers in a room who cannot master the correct dance moves for the show taking place next week. However the mere fact that they come back week after week gives me some confidence that we must be doing something right and that one day they may look back and admit that they had fun.

And that, my friends, is a brief resume of the life of a Youth Group Worker. If you have any specific questions, please ask and I will do my best to answer them. I think as a last word I would add that, if nothing else, it keeps you young.


P.S. Apologies for the lack of regular blogging in these parts. I am now working for my current boss, my previous boss and doing quite a bit of preparation work for the youth group. It makes life interesting but time melt away. I will try and keep up the blogging but it may be a little less frequent for a while.

Domestic Goddesticity

I’m all for feminism and being a career woman. The only problem is that I like a bit of domestic bliss as well and therein lies the problem. I just don’t have time for both. In my ideal world I would be holding down a sensible and high flying job during the day and spending my evenings and weekends, socialising, baking, reading, shopping and taking long walks followed by hot baths. It all sounds like heaven. Sadly it would appear that I don’t have time for heaven, as was brought home to me over the weekend.

It should have been so simple. With a busy week in front of me (our big event happening this coming Saturday) I was going to do some leisurely cooking and baking in advance and then freezing it, ready to be defrosted for quick and easy eating after a long day.

The plan was to make Chicken Paprika and some bread as an accompaniment. Delicious, or so I thought.

First to be made was the Chicken Paprika. Secure in the knowledge that I had correctly followed the recipe, I dished the chicken into individual portions to be stored in the freezer. It was on opening the fridge/freezer door that I noticed the yoghurt which I had forgotten to add to the Chicken Paprika. I can now expect to find my tongue ablaze with Paprika on eating this first delicacy.

I then realised that I had burned the pot I had cooked it in. Not just a little burn. Oh no, the kind of burn that a days soaking, a few hours boiling and some CIF couldn’t shift. I’ve now given up and will try to put a positive spin on the black crusty thing lurking at the bottom of my pot.

Now I know that Bread is a recurring theme of this blog so I apologise in advance but my second disaster was with yeast and dough. I made it once, it didn’t work out. I made it a second time and it was fine. I rested on my laurels and forgot the phrase “pride comes before a fall”. Oh and what a spectacular fall this was. I fell right out of those laurels and bashed my head on the ground, with not even a soft bit of bread to break my fall.

My excuse is that I was rushing the bread because, again, I didn’t have a lot of spare time. Secondly I thought that as I was now an experienced bread maker, I could cut corners, experiment and generally do what I wanted. THIS IS WRONG. ALWAYS RESPECT THE BREAD OR IT WILL NOT RESPECT YOU.

Corners were cut, quantities were changed and the result was a charred soggy mess that took me 5 ½ hours to achieve. I could have wept. In fact, I almost did, but I had visitors coming, so I had to keep my chin up, buy some cake and carry on.

When they did arrive, one look at the bread told them the sorry tale and when their toddler tried to take some, he was hastily dragged away by his mum.

Of course I am putting this lack of culinary skill down to the lack of time I had to do it. Nothing to do with just not being the domestic goddess that I would dearly wish to be.