A MALVERN care home resident is beaming with pride after one of her mother’s beloved Christmas cake recipes featured in Sanctuary Care’s charity cookbook.
Edith Walker, who lives at Hastings Residential Care Home, is one of the stars of A Lifetime of Flavours: A Celebration of Food, Family and the Lives Behind Beloved Recipes.
Curated by Sanctuary Care, a not-for-profit care provider with 109 homes across the UK, nine of which are in Worcestershire, the cookbook features 42 treasured recipes from residents aged 70 to 105 and celebrates the joy of cooking, memory, and continuity in later life. The money raised by the book supports Mental Health UK, Sanctuary Care’s charity of the Year.
“I think it’s absolutely brilliant that the recipe is in the book,” Edith said. “I am sure my mother would be watching down on me from up there – she loved cooking and the number of recipes she would know was unbelievable.
“Seeing the book has brought back so many lovely memories – when we made Christmas cakes we would put a silver sixpence inside, it was supposed to be a ‘lucky sixpence’ and if you found it in your piece everyone would cheer!”
Now a resident at the Sanctuary Care home, Edith still shares her passion for cooking with her fellow residents, as well as running cake decorating workshops with them, teaching them how to make fondant icing figures.
The cookbook is free to download or can be ordered in limited print for a donation, with all proceeds going to Mental Health UK. It also includes a foreword from 2023 Great British Bake Off winner Matty Edgell, who shares how food shaped his own family memories.