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When I was growing up we rarely had anything you could term a convenience food. I've sat here for quite a while trying to think of something I recall having with any regularity and have come up blank. I do remember one of my brothers had something called Peck's Paste on his sandwiches, but I didn't go near it, so gladly can't remember what that was all about.

If we had hot chips (fries) to eat, mum peeled the potatoes and double cooked them in our stove top frier. Mum's always made her own bread although I think we also had bought bread for school lunches. Biscuits and cakes were homemade. I do remember an occasional packet of chocolate biscuits entering the house and it was a real treat. I also remember my dad would get up in the very late or very early hours and have just one more. That was in the days when he still had a mouth full of sweet teeth.

I went to school with girls who had lunchboxes filled with bought treats. It sticks in my mind to this day that one class mate would regularly come to school with either cold KFC or a cold McDonalds apple pie in her lunch box!

One thing that was more common for others, not me, was something from the Susan Day cake range. To this day these cakes live in the bread section of your supermarket and include lamingtons, madeira cakes and swiss rolls both large and individual.

When the girls and I did our monthly shop yesterday it was heading towards afternoon tea time when we found ourselves in the bread aisle. As is often the case when I buy anything convenience related, I love the IDEA that you can buy something ready-made in a supermarket that's good to eat. I saw the swiss rolls and remembered them from years ago. I remembered having the smaller individual ones at some point and how I would unroll them and eat piece by piece, rather than bite by bite. We bought one to have for afternoon tea.

We got in, unpackaged all the shopping, the girls chomping at the bit the whole time to have their cake. We had cups of tea and then Leila cut us all a slice. I admit that I didn't check the labelling, something I always do, but I am sure that these swiss rolls are made from at least 85% man made products, it wasn't good. I remembered it being so light, so tasty, so yum. This had that aftertaste of fake sugar and a feel that was somewhat gritty. It wasn't just me, neither of the girls finished theirs either.

So, with that failure in mind, I promised them something more like what I remembered as a child est voila, a homemade swiss roll, just like mum used to make.

PS you may have noticed my post numbering has taken a big leap. In fact I've just checked how many posts I've done since this blog started and changed the number to reflect that.