Sweet Treats from Cumbria
Sweet treats from Cumbria
There are many delicious sweet treats that are quintessentially Cumbrian. The world famous Kendal Mint Cake, sticky toffee pudding – Cartmel’s very own comfort food and of course the irresistibly crumbly, spicy Grasmere Gingerbread still made to an old but very secret recipe.
Chocolate is everyone’s favourite so visit the village of Orton where the Kennedy family’s small factory produces some of the finest quality hand-made chocolates available to buy at their onsite factory shop. With over 80 varieties to choose from you will be spoilt for choice. So bide your time, have lunch in the Conservatory Coffee House and take home your own special selection. How about ‘Passion Fruit & Galliano’, ‘Eton Mess’ or ‘Lime & Chilli’?
The Toffee Shop in Penrith uses a 90 year old recipe for its celebrated fudge and toffee. Don’t just go 
to The Toffee Shop on Brunswick Road because you happen to be in the town, make a special trip to Penrith like Prince Charles and hundreds of other sweet-toothed fudge addicts have. ‘It’s difficult to describe the sensation of eating the fudge – it’s a rich grainy textured fudge like tablet (Scottish fudge) but smoother and not as sweet, so you can eat masses without feeling sick’. Now there’s a challenge if ever I heard one!
The 
Village Shop in Cartmel is the birthplace of the one and only Sticky Toffee Pudding. It’s hand-made on the premises as it has been for the last 20 years and there really is nothing to match it. Fill your basket with this and other yummy pudding treats such as ‘sticky banana’ or ’sticky ginger’ and delicious boxes of ‘sticky toffee’ chocolates. You can even buy jars of sticky toffee sauce which is lovely on most things but especially on vanilla ice cream.
Quite often the first thing people think of when Kendal is mentioned is ‘mint cake’. First created by 
Joseph Wiper in 1869 and still produced in the town by Romney’s using his original recipe. According to legend, a Kendal confectioner, intending to make glacier mints, took his eye off the cooking pan for a minute and then, resuming his task, noticed that the mixture had started to ‘grain’ and become cloudy, instead of clear. When poured out, the result was Mint Cake. Pop some in your picnic or in your backpack next time you are out on the hills for an instant minty boost of energy!
As popular today as it always has been why not find out more about how Kendal Mint Cake fortified famous expeditions from the Arctic to Everest at the ‘Top of The World’ exhibition in Kendal’s Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry?
http://www.lakelandmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/kendal-mint-cake-top-world