I received the call that I had been hoping for at the end of September to advised that I had been chosen to supply a new café in town with their baked cakes. I was delighted. This meant more baking, which I love (obviously!), creating more ideas and gaining more knowledge. You can never have too much baking knowledge after all.
1898 Food & Drink opened in early October serving hot beverages and local produce, oh and they have a licence to sell alcohol too. This means that when I can no longer face the site of cake, I can take time out and unwind with a glass of wine and a locally home made scotch egg – perfect!
Upon entering to make my first delivery, I could sense a warm, relaxing, friendly environment with the feel for really wanting to look after the customer. The attention to detail, such as the wifi password on display and smart phone chargers ready available for customer use, neatly packed away in colourful bags make it all that little bit different. There are even toys available for small children. You feel instantly drawn towards the shiny new domes on the front counter containing sublime mouth watering temptations…………. and of course they contain my cakes!!!
I didn’t really anticipate how busy this would keep me. All I seem to have done through October is bake and buy emergency supplies from the supermarket. This is all good of course but I have been overwhelmed by the lovely feedback I have received about my cakes. Twice I have been making deliveries when customers have been paying and said ‘whoever makes your cakes, they are lovely’ and ‘that was the best coffee walnut cake I have tasted’. This has left me feeling both relieved and proud. Relieved that I got it right and proud that I can continue to do so.
One post on Facebook left two of my likers arranging to meet up in there for coffee one Sunday morning and when I arrived with the cakes they cheered! This was quite an amusing moment I have to say so I stuck around for a coffee and to see what they thought of the white chocolate and raspberry cake. It went down well.
With every new venture it is all about learning and I am learning to be more adventurous and experiment with flavours. I randomly turned up with a pear and ginger loaf one day and it was gone within a couple of days.
So, if you are thinking of holding an event, an afternoon tea, a meeting or even want to surprise a friend, don’t forget the cake! Sometimes it is important to impress and cake usually impresses people.
A little baking tip I picked up when making my ginger cake – use Opies stem ginger in a jar. When the cake is out of the oven, prick it all over with a fork and gently heat 3 tablespoons of the syrup with one tablespoon of water and pour over the cake. The only problem is, if you’re going to end up using the whole jar just for cake making, you’re going to run out of syrup. I am still thinking about that one………..