Different areas of the UK have a huge array of words for bread products, have you noticed? Where I’m from, in the north-east, our local bread is a stotty cake although where I live in north London it’s all sun-dried tomato with olive focaccia, dahling. And in Weatherfield it’s barmcakes, the staple of the factory girls’ diet. But what exactly is a barmcake? Well...
...it’s not a cake, for a start, it’s a bread roll. Lee, who edits the cricket blog in the office next door is from Lancashire and confirms this and I've found a picture of one here.
There’s even a Coronation Street fan club in Canada called The Barmcakes and you can buy barmcake t-shirts here. Note, however, that a barmcake should never be confused with that other Coronation Street favourite, a lumpy-bumpy cake. because then you woud be a barmcake as it's also a light hearted term for a fool as in for example, Vera to Jack: "Eeh, you great big daft barmcake!
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Ah but what of the barmcake girls? Doreen Lostock and Sheila Birtles were referred to as "the barm cake girls" in all scripts until mid-1961 when it was decided to give them names. Up until then they were always seen buying barmcakes in the corner shop.
You're barmy, you lot ;)))
Yum!