My late grandmother, a wonderful cook and pastry chef who I loved dearly, had an acerbic tongue when it came to other people’s cooking, including that of her own children.

“Is it from a packet?” was her grandest insult upon tasting a cake baked by her progeny. She refused to believe we’d inherited her baking prowess, and the only plausible explanation for a good outcome – unless she was involved, of course – was that we had cheated with Betty Crocker cake mix.

Melissa Singer’s Kenwood mixer, handed down from her grandmother.

To be fair, the woman did bake at a higher level than us mere mortals. My mother’s angel cake never reached the lofty heights of my grandmother’s, and I’ve never tasted an apple strudel quite like hers. Whenever I climbed the steps to her and my grandfather’s home, the whirring of her 1970s Kenwood mixer always sparked joy, even when it was employed to mince livers for her homemade pate, eggs for an appetiser traditionally served on Jewish holidays, or beef for her delicious kreplach (Yiddish for dumplings).

We’d spend hours, talking – or, rather, yelling, such was the mixer’s volume – as the balloon whisk........

© Brisbane Times