Copyright and cupcakes

It seems that Lola’s Cupcakes have stolen Ms Marmite Lover’s (Kerstin Rodgers) recipe for marmite cupcakes – that is, they’ve taken bits of text (you can’t copyright the ingredients) and messed up the instructions.

The comments are sometimes rather silly or downright rude. But I don’t understand why she doesn’t go to a lawyer but is waiting for Lola’s to do the right thing. I think she needs some damages and not just a donation to charity.

MsMarmiteLover writes:

You cannot copyright, for instance, a classic recipe such as a Victoria sponge or a recipe for hummus.

Perhaps that’s unfortunate when one reads that Konditor and Cook recommend adding extra egg yolk and crème fraiche to a ‘Victoria sponge’ – that doesn’t sound very German to me. From The Spectator:

Konditor and Cook (Ebury, £20, Spectator Bookshop, £18) is the book of an Anglo-German cake shop, which, given the excellence of German cakes, is oddly rare on the scene here. Gerhard Jenne is notable for his quirky decorations and humorous take on fondant fancies and you get a fair share of jolly stuff here, but there are also things like plum streusel in the German fashion. It’s all delicious, but I should warn you that some of the cake bases are quite dense, the cooking times aren’t always geared to domestic ovens and there’s a variation on a Victoria sponge (extra egg yolk, added crème fraiche) which comes squarely into the category of gilded lilies.

Meanwhile, Time Out recommends London’s best German bakeries, Victoria sponge hin oder her.

Thanks to Trevor as usual.

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