4 oz Breton soft butter, first churn
8 oz white caster sugar, sifted
4 large fresh free-range eggs, beaten
6 oz self-raising flour
6 oz plain flour
1 cup fresh milk
1 tsp vanilla essence

Icing
4 oz Breton soft butter, first churn
16 oz icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 oz milk
2 tsp essence of roses

Grease three small cake pans. Cream the butter until as smooth as a child’s cheek.

Add sugar very gradually. No dumping like you normally do, Isabel. This has to be fluffy; properly fluffy. Add a grain at a time through the whisk.

Add the eggs slowly. Beat well at all times.

Mix the sifted flours and add a little milk and vanilla; then some flour, then some milk and vanilla and so on. Do not rush. This is your birthday cake for you, and you are very special. You deserve a little time.

Bake for 20 minutes at 350°F/gas mark 4.

For the icing, add half the icing sugar to the butter. Add milk, vanilla and essence of roses. Beat thoroughly, adding sugar till the icing reaches the desired consistency.

Ice layers and top of cake. Add candles. Not too many.

Add friends. As many as you can.

Blow candles out while making a happy wish. Do not tell anyone a) your wish, b) your recipe. Some things, like you, are special, my darling.

Love, Gramps

8 oz butter, softened
4 oz caster sugar
5 eggs
½ tin sweetened condensed milk
8 oz Horlicks
8 oz plain flour
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp cognac

Grease the small square tin and line the base and sides with baking paper. Allow the baking paper to extend over the top by about an inch if using the shorter tin.

Beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one by one, until well combined. Beat in the sweetened condensed milk until well mixed. Stir in Horlicks. Fold in flour. Finally stir in vanilla and cognac.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin (the batter will fill the tin to almost 90 per cent, but the cake will not rise up too much, so don’t worry, darling). Cover the top loosely with a piece of aluminium foil.

Steam over high heat for 30 minutes. Fill up with more hot water if the steamer is low on water after 30 minutes.

Turn heat down to medium and steam for another 60 minutes, or until cooked (may steam for up to 4 hours in total if desired – this, according to wisdom, allows the cake to be kept for up to a month). Remember to replenish steamer with hot water whenever it is drying up.

A little taste of sunshine to take out into the world:

For 24 cupcakes
250g unsalted butter, at room temperature
250g caster sugar
4 eggs
250g self-raising flour
4 tbsp milk (whole or semi-skimmed, not skimmed)
6–8 tsp strawberry jam

For the Swiss meringue buttercream
8 egg whites
500g caster sugar
500g unsalted butter
4 tsp vanilla extract
8 tbsp seedless strawberry jam

Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/gas mark 5.

Beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, flour and milk and beat until well combined and smooth. Spoon the mixture evenly into the 24 paper cases.

Spoon a little jam on to each cake and, using a cocktail stick, swirl the jam into the batter.

Bake for 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

To make Swiss meringue buttercream

Place the egg whites and sugar in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stir pretty much constantly to prevent the egg from cooking. After five–ten minutes, when the sugar has dissolved, remove the bowl from the pan of simmering water and whisk until the meringue has puffed up and the mix is cool.

Add the butter and vanilla to the meringue and whisk until the butter has been completely incorporated into it. At first it will look a disaster – it will collapse and look curdled but don’t worry! Stop when the mixture is smooth, light and fluffy.

Beat the jam into the buttercream. If you want it pinker, add a little food colouring. Spoon the buttercream into a piping bag and swirl on to each cupcake. Finish off with some sugar sprinkles or decorations.

Quarter the cakes and put the pieces into tiny cases with cocktail sticks poking out. Attempt to get passers-by to try them and be knocked out by your genius so they then come and spend lots of money at your shop and save you from bankruptcy.

3 pears, peeled, halved and cored
7 oz butter
7 oz caster sugar
3 eggs
7 oz self-raising flour, sifted
3 tbsp milk
1 tbsp icing sugar

Arrange the pear halves evenly over the bottom of a buttered pudding dish and set aside. Using a wooden spoon (not the mixer. I know you think the mixer, but I say to you, did I build three bakeries in Manchester with electric mixers? Well, eventually, yes. But at first we did it with the wooden spoon, and so should you), cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs, adding them one at a time and mixing well after each addition. Add the flour to the bowl, gently folding it into the mixture, then stir in the milk. Spoon the cake mixture evenly over the pears and smooth the surface.

Cook in a preheated oven at 350°F/gas mark 4 for 45 minutes, until the surface is firm when gently touched and the cake comes slightly away from the sides of the dish.

Remove from the oven, let it cool for five minutes, then turn out on to a serving plate.

Dust the top of the cake evenly with icing sugar and serve immediately. Congratulate the pears on a job well done.

Love, Gramps xx