Taste: It’s make or bake time...

A CYGNET couple are helping to keep tradition alive – making cake tins with old machinery, or even by hand.

YOUR grandmother’s wedding cake probably was baked in a tin made by S.G. Emmett & Son – and so might your granddaughter’s. Not only are these hand-made tins still in production but they are built to last and last.

Paul Kenyon and Denise Darnell are the third, and latest, incarnation of the business.

In a former apple canning shed in Cygnet, Paul is becoming more proficient by the day on machinery Stanley Emmett first put to use in 1924. But Emmett bought the machines second-hand and they were made by a (still going) Sydney firm, John Heine & Son, established in 1886, so who knows how old they are.

“Machinery” does not quite describe the old equipment. Only two of the nine devices
it takes to make a round cake tin are powered by electricity. The blade just drops in the guillotines, a handle is wound, a lever is pressed to achieve a range of shiny, silver tins just crying out for three tiers of wedding cake, a lamington or Swiss roll mix.

And a rectangular cake tin or round one bigger than 10 inches is made completely by hand. Ten inches equals 25cm, but all the templates, and therefore the products, are measured in inches.

Three years ago the couple were living in Crows Nest, Queensland, where Paul farmed mushrooms. Online they saw a sloop for sale in Tasmania and bought it before Paul rode his motorbike down to Cygnet.

He discovered the photographed boat was a wreck, and they needed to stay here to fix it. Denise moved down and they worked on the boat and in orchards before seeing the S.G. Emmett business for sale.

Paul worked with then owner Scott Wilson for a couple of weeks before moving the old machinery from Orielton to Cygnet.

Paul said: “I thought I would pick it up in a couple of weeks, but here I am eight months later and still learning – bit like the boat really.”

Denise Darnell and Paul Kenyon with some of their cake tins.

The containers are made from tin-coated steel, which comes in sheets they buy from another company still making tins this old-fashioned way, Cecil & Co in Melbourne.

The tin is rolled around a wire at the rim for extra sturdiness. Before they leave the workshop, Denise rubs the tins over with olive oil, which is the only coating on them. They suggest you dry the tins in a warm oven or they may rust. Dints and blackening are no deterrent to most users though.

In fact, gaining repeat business could be a problem. Lila Palmer, who opened her business Coryule Cake Decorating in Bellerive in the early 1960s, has S.G. Emmett cake tins that are more than 40 years old.

She hires out tins for people making celebratory cakes – Emmett tins in octagon, horseshoe, hexagon, diamond and key shapes for 21st birthdays. So far Paul has stayed with rectangles, rounds and hearts.

There is a cache of templates he has not yet, and may never, get around to using – baby baths, galvanised iron buckets, biscuit canisters, loaf tins, milk jugs, bread bins.

Stanley Emmett began the business in the laundry at his home in New Town, but was kicked out every Monday so his wife could do the washing and eventually moved to dedicated premises in Moonah. Emmett worked until he was 93.

Lila Palmer says in the Depression Emmett hired as many people as he could, giving them a few hours work a week. When he was in peak production he had four staff.

“He was the most gorgeous old man you could ever meet,” said Lila, who used to take Stanley and her mother to the casino to play 5c machines and on Sunday drives.

Paul and Denise took part in Handmade in Cygnet over Easter, and as a result of publicity from that, Emmett’s daughter Anne has been in touch, and an Emmett family visit to the new factory is due soon.

You can buy S.G. Emmett cake tins at Medhurst Kitchen Equipment and Tasmanian Hotels & Catering Supplies in Hobart or Cygnet Garden Larder in Cygnet. But if you go to 46A Lymington Rd, Cygnet, you can also watch Paul in action. It is the second old shed past the roundabout. Look for the blackboard sign “Hand Made Cake Tins”.