Who can forget Kunzle Showboats?
Delicious chocolate shells filled with fondant cream, sponge and topped with more chocolate or small sweets. You could buy them individually in sweet shops and coffee shops. or your mother would buy a box of them for Sunday tea. Then all of a sudden, they disappeared from the shops. What happened? Well, I have been trying to find out for several years. The original Kunzle company became the property of Lyons in the late sixties. Lyons continued to produce Kunzle Showboats for a while after that. More takeovers and mergers followed over the years, and now the Lyons brand is owned by RHM Limited. You may never have heard from them but they are a giant food group who are also behind the “Mr Kipling” brand. Somewhere along the way, Kunzle Showboats got lost. Why do I care - why should you care? Kunzle Showboats were a unique (and delicious) confection. They were also a part of British child hood for a generation of people. There is nothing else remotely like them. When I talk to people, many also fondly remember the little chocolate cakes. They had so much chocolate, cream and decoration there was little room left for sponge - they were sheer indulgence. I have seen them discussed on the internet, and also discussed on radio phone-ins. I feel sure that if enough of us told RHM Limited how we felt - they would realise that reviving them would be good business for them. What can you do? Use the links opposite. Email me with your memories and support. Write to RHM. If you have a website - link to me (I can provide a return link if you wish*) I have had to remove the link to the excellent J Lyons and Co History website as they are currently suffering excess traffic. I wish them every future success and thank them for their support. If you have any pictures of Kunzle Showboats - that would also be really useful!
When fulfilling my National Service in the RAF, I was staioned near to Felisxtowe. A small group of us would go into Felixstowe on a Saturday afternoon and have tea and cakes at a small cafe on the sea front.
The waitress would bring a plate of Kunzle cakes and set them on the table. No matter how many she brought, and as she got to know us it would increase, they would all be gone before we left.
Just never forgot those cakes. They were distinctive in appearance and taste. I can see them, and taste them as I write this.
I went back recently to find that cafe. It had changed a little but was still there. Unfortunately, the cakes were not.
BRING THEM BACK! P L E A S E!
Comment by Ray Newton — September 9, 2007 @ 10:17 am
I remember kunzle showboats too. I could buy them individually at the little corner shop. I would get them as a special treat at Christmas and for my birthday. They were delicious, the best cakes ever. I wish they were still available. i particularly loved the orange one, I think it was the oval shaped one. The square one was pink, the round one chocolate and the hexagonal one was vanilla. Yumm, sorely missed.
Comment by Mandy Hill — October 9, 2007 @ 9:29 pm
I have very fond memories of the Kunzle cake. I wish that they would re introduce them because trying to describre the taste and the and the sheer indulgence of eating one is impossible. people would have to try them for themselves to appreciate them.
Comment by marlene kerr — October 17, 2007 @ 11:15 am
Yes please bring back Kunzle cake for my husband he’s 54 this year I am only a couple of years younger but for the life of me can’t remeber them.
So it would be nice and it would bring back one of his childhood memories.
BRING BACK KUNZLE CAKES instead of all the other rubbish out now!!!!!!
Comment by Janet Foyle — October 29, 2007 @ 1:13 pm
I am 49 and I remember Kunzel Cakes. As many posters before me have said we were talking about them at work this week. No one else had heard of them and I couldn’t remember what they were like. i just remember loving them. The picture even though it’s not a good one brings the memories flooding back. They were abs0lutely delicious back then. I wonder if they would taste the same now we are adult - love to try. BRING BACK THE KUNZEL CAKE.
Comment by Jayne Dawson — November 2, 2007 @ 12:38 pm
Sorry but in the change over to our new provider earlier this year the Kunzle page(along with a few others) did not get copied over.
I have only just realised tonight so I have just put this on now.
The URL is here
http://madeinbirmingham.org/kunzle.htm
Pictures to follow.
There will be a question on the forum about Kunzle Cakes so you are all welcome to join in
JP
Comment by Made in Birmingham — November 7, 2007 @ 1:20 am
Yeeeesssshhhh!!!! I remember kunzel showboats! Absolute heaven. I can still taste them now. I cannot understand why no-one has brought them back to civilisation. Strangely enough, I do not eat cakes or biscuits…….I now know why.
Comment by Annie Hutter — November 19, 2007 @ 11:52 am
For reasons I can’t explain, I suddenly recalled Kunzle cakes with great affection. A quick Google, and, lo and behold, there are many who think like me!!
Around 1970 I lived in the West Midlands and clearly recall the great delights of Kunzle cakes. However my wife, who comes from Liverpool, doesn’t know what I am talking about, so, was there a regional variation in their availability, or did she just suffer a deprived childhood?
Comment by Nick Looker — January 10, 2008 @ 11:01 pm
Uncanny. I have occasionally thought about Kunzle Showboats over the last few years- the different shapes, that solid chocolate shell, the pink and yellow and orange (and green?) cream so thick that the sponge in the bottom was minimal, the little “jelly tot” sweet on top and the chocolate striping across the surface- never was there a recipe of synthetic goo so designed to drive a seven-year-old child wild with greed in the mid 60s in rural Devon.! I think I remember eating them in London in the early 70s too, but the memories dim at around 1975. BRING THEM BACK PLEASE!!
Comment by Simon Barnes — January 21, 2008 @ 10:16 am
I have read most of these comments and can only repeat at the age of 77 no other cake has had such appeal and been so sorely missed BRING BACK THE KUNZLE i dont expect them to be cheap but all we ask for is a treat .
Comment by terry wilkinson — January 29, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
I too remember these wonderful cakes from my childhood.In the early eighties they were sold at waitrose for a short
time. Bring them back.
Comment by judy clarke — January 29, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
I am 57 and remember my Mum bringing Kunzle Showboats home from the Co-op in Erith, Kent, where she worked. I’m sure they are responsible for my lifelong sweet tooth. Did the original recipe come from Switzerland?
Comment by Linda Ireland — February 25, 2008 @ 12:33 am
I periodically look for Kunzel Cakes on the web and low and behold this morning there I find this site.
My sister and I were discussing these delicious cakes just recently remembered from our childhood (I am 67), and like others can also still taste them. They were so delicious and very sorely missed.
Would be great if someone could start producing them again and I am sure all age groups would be rushing to buy.
Comment by Lesley Wilson — March 23, 2008 @ 10:08 am
I am 42 years old and it’s amazing how many people of my age or similar age do not remember these amazing little cakes, when i try to explain to them what these cakes were like they look at me like i’m mad!!!
I remember them well though, and it’s great to read peoples comments on them too. I remember when sunday tea was a ritual back in the late 60’s to early 70’s in our house, mum would open a tin of salmon for sandwhiches, we would have a home-made birds trifle, and a bowl of salad and there were allways kunzels showboats, my sister didn’t have a sweet tooth so i allways got to eat hers!!! yipee!! they were happy memories of childhood, but sadly things change….
Comment by dawn — April 6, 2008 @ 2:50 pm
I remember Kunzle Showboats, they were delicious. Bring them back!!!
Comment by Maria Thomas — May 11, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
As a young girl in the 1960’s Kunzel cakes were a firm favourite, then they just seemed to vanish and we couldn’t get hold of them. I have told my own children how delicious they were and WE WOULD ALL LOVE TO SEE THEM produced again. They were unique and would be welcomed by a new generation of yummy cake lovers!
Comment by Geraldine Ribbons — May 18, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
my great grandmother is desperate to find out how to make these kunzel cakes or showbaots as everyone seemt o be calling them! if anyone can help me then it would be wonderful!
thankyou
Comment by melissa — May 23, 2008 @ 10:33 pm
i remember scooping the coffee and cream out with my finger then eating the thick chocolate triangle last. cofee, banana, strawberry and one other. I wish they would come back.I am e mailing mr kipling but wont hold my breath.Fond memories karen
Comment by karen robb — May 24, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
Kunzle Showboats really were the ’special’ part of the special teatime. The orange one was my favourite. Yes, I would certainly love to see them return but can’t help thinking that with EU directives, additives and so on, they just wouldn’t be produced quite the same as they were back then.
Comment by Kim Cavanagh — May 26, 2008 @ 3:11 pm
I loved those Kunzle cakes and can still taste them even now, I first job 1959 in the pits in South wales (Newlands) and a fitter men used to bring them in for me on a Monday. Boy did I enjoy going to work on Mondays, like everyone else would love to see them back on the shelf, wouldn’t be there long judging by the comments. If they can put a man on the moon surely they can bring back “Kunzle Showboats”
Comment by Peter Joyner — June 27, 2008 @ 6:40 pm
I too have been recalling these little gems aver the past couple of months. I have told me son about them and would dearly love toi find these back on the shelves again. It was wonderful when I stumbled on your website, I was begining to think that I had made it all up in my head. Bring them back I say!!!!
Comment by antonia leahy — August 19, 2008 @ 2:04 pm
I have just been discussing these at work and I would love them to come back. All childhood memories come flooding back when you talk about them.
Comment by Jane Brown — September 11, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
Bring back the yellow!! Who decided to stop making them anyway?? AND lets have a walnut inside the walnut whip once again!!
Comment by Julian Pruggmayer — October 12, 2008 @ 2:56 pm
We have been discussing these yummy cakes this afternoon at work and we say PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE bring them back! Come on you know you want too!
Comment by Corinne & Eileen — October 24, 2008 @ 3:58 pm
I worked in the small self service store my Dad used to Manage in Lordship Lane E Dulwich SE22 late afternoons after school and Saturdays between 1961-1965 it was slave labour and he only paid me ten Shillings.So to make up for it i used to nick the Kunzle Cakes i was addicted to them. My old man thought they were a great seller, little did he know
They were the yummiest cakes ever,yeah! i wish they would bring them back. These cakes never went stale whereas the Jaffa Cakes did ,as they were never sealed properley ,it took them years to correct this ,it’s a shame really because i would scoffed them up as well…..Rory Kenny
Comment by Rory Kenny — November 7, 2008 @ 12:49 am
Strange!…I woke up this morning and ‘Kunzle cake’ popped into my mind unbidden. In fact I had to think if this was real or a made up name from my dream. I immediatly went to Google and low and behold, I now remember these treats from my childhood at the Lyons Corner House in Ealing, where my Nan used to take me for ‘Coffee and a dash’( mostly hot milk with a dash of bottled coffee essence for flavor)I was around 5 years old.I am now 64 living in the States since 1978.And while I am at it, what was the name of the liquid coffee in a bottle, that we used to mix with hot water? We kids used to make this on a little stove while pretending to be camping in my friends back yard.
Comment by Dela — November 17, 2008 @ 5:05 pm
does anyone have a recipe with real ingredients (no synthetic stuff)
Comment by Dela — November 17, 2008 @ 5:11 pm
Reading these comments I wonder if there were two distinct products?
I remember Kunle cakes, but not Kunzel Showboats.
The Kunzel cake did not come in any variety but was a single type, which you bought in a box of 6 or 8 of them (possibly more), and I think they were marketed by Lyons. I also don’t think there would have been any coconut in them because I do not like coconut, but still crave the Kunzel cakes I used to scoff in my late teens.
Comment by Bernard Butler — November 29, 2008 @ 6:48 pm