Baking is one of my favourite things. I like the process (usually) and I like the end product (more often than not). My mother didn't bake so I definitely didn't pick it up from her. I can remember the first time I tried to bake a cake. Was I nine? Ten? Did I need a recipe? No. Intrepidly I gathered ingredients and mixed them all together willy nilly: flour, sugar, margarine, dried fruit, glace cherries, milk. No weighing, no measuring, no recommended temperature setting. There must have been a baking tin in the house because I remember putting the mixture into a round tin. I probably kept opening the oven to check the progress. The cake was edible and I thought I'd try baking again. In those days certain shops gave out Green Shield stamps with purchases, the quantity depending on how much you spent. My mother would distribute her stamps between my siblings and me, and when we had each had filled our first book, she brought us off to the nearest depot where we exchan...