When there's war, poverty and so much doom and gloom in the world, sometimes you yearn for a light-hearted distraction... so here we go. We're big fans of Birds Bakery's cakes in our house, especially a big choux bun filled with cream and topped with chocolate.
Last time we went into the shop in Beeston and requested one by the name we've always known it by, an elephant's foot for obvious reasons, the assistant corrected us, calling it a cream puff. Well, the outrage. What's going on? Has Birds changed the name? It warranted a tongue-in-cheek post on social media asking what you called them and quite frankly the response was astounding.
Paul Robey, of Boom Radio, said: "Being brought up in Clifton, it was always a special treat for birthdays and other big occasions. My mum’s favourite cake and her mum’s too - going back to when they lived in the old Meadows. Even working at the Pru on Maid Marian Way, in the 80s, they were 'the' cake for birthdays and no one ever called them anything but an elephant’s foot.
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"I accept they are, in effect, choux bun pastries, I suppose (reluctantly) but certainly never a cream puff. Interesting to look at Birds' own Facebook pages, as recently as April 2021 they were referred to as 'our classic elephant’s foot'."
The vast majority of the 600 respondents on Twitter and Facebook call it an elephant's foot. Ken Green said: "It's still elephant's foot for me. It's all I ask for when shopping."
Christine Hilton commented: "We used to call them an elephant's foot but they were huge, now you would have to call them a baby elephant foot." Michelle Mee posted: "Hubby loves an elephant's foot, always known as that and always will be."
Peter Smith responded: "Back in London they would be cream buns, but I much prefer the Nottinghamian elephant's foot'. Several blamed the woke brigade. Joanne Moore replied: "Elephant's foot - I would refuse to call them anything else. Is this PC gone mad - are they worried about upsetting the elephants?
However, those who have worked at Birds have a different story. Jane Roots said: "I call them cream puffs as that's what they were listed as when I worked at Birds 35 years ago! Most people call them elephant's feet," while Jason Lee Woolley said: "Always been a cream puff. Made enough of them from 1989 to 2011."
Other cake lovers call them choux buns or choux eclairs but Sylvia Mckenzie said: "Delicious whatever they're called."
Birds Bakery, which sells the cakes in 25 shops across Nottinghamshire, including Lister Gate and Victoria Centre in the city, Netherfield, Clifton and Eastwood, set the record straight. Mike Holling, sales and marketing director at Birds Bakery, said: “Here at Birds Bakery, we have always called it a cream puff' with the term elephant's food being coined by the people of the Midlands.
"We can certainly see where the fans of the choux pastry have got this nickname from. Regardless of what our customers like to call it, we will always know what they mean when ordering one over the counter.”
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