Lorraine Kelly unveils 8,000-page cookbook preserving Britain's most treasured family baking recipes
From wartime rock cakes to treasured family Christmas puddings, hundreds of Britain's favourite bakes have been immortalised in an extraordinary 8,000-page cookbook designed to keep generations of kitchen memories alive.
It’s enough to make Mary Berry's eyes water!
An astonishing 8,000-page cookbook packed with Britain's most treasured family baking recipes has been unveiled by TV favourite Lorraine Kelly. The mammoth collection, called The National Book of Bakes, brings together hundreds of handwritten recipes and personal stories from across the UK and Ireland in a bid to stop generations of baking traditions disappearing forever.
And it's no ordinary cookbook – the incredible archive spans 8,000 colour pages, with 21 copies printed using a single tank of ink. Lorraine, who has contributed her own family's favourite Dundee cake recipe, officially unveiled the collection at a special London launch before donating copies to Leiths Education and the University of Leeds' Cookery Collection.
The broadcaster hopes her Granny Mac's Dundee cake will eventually be passed down to her granddaughter Billie. She said: "It's not just a recipe, is it? It's a memory, a story and a connection to the people who came before us." And the collection is bursting with heartwarming tales.
One recipe celebrates a village Christmas cake tradition kept alive by friends Polly Pollecutt, Fiona Penn and Allison for nearly 20 years. Every November, villagers gather for Stir-up Sunday to mix the cake and make a Christmas wish before it is baked for the local junior choir's Nativity.
There is also a wartime rock cake recipe from Julie B, which uses grated carrots and golden syrup instead of eggs, reflecting the food shortages of the Second World War. Other entries include Norfolk toffee tart, passed down by a former school dinner lady, and an apple cake honouring a contributor's late Slovenian grandmother.
The project comes amid concerns that family food traditions could be disappearing. Research commissioned by HP found 48 per cent of people associate family recipes with nostalgia, while 33 per cent fear younger generations are losing interest. And old-fashioned paper still wins in the kitchen, with 41 per cent preferring printed recipes compared with just 19 per cent who favour using their phones.
Lou Kissane, culinary director at Leiths Education, said the archive would allow future chefs and students to explore the country's rich culinary heritage. With hundreds of family memories now preserved in print, this is one recipe book that really is worth its weight in flour!