Month: February 2019

Which is your favourite?

| Too busy to make

These two cakes have been safely delivered to the Earl Grey Tearoom in Southborough today. Which would you choose?

First, there is a Red Velvet cake with cream cheese buttercream icing to go with the cocoa flavoured red sponge, kept moist using sunflower oil and buttermilk.

Or there is a white chocolate and raspberry cake with raspberries and white chocolate baked in the sponge, iced with mascarpone and white chocolate and topped with freeze dried raspberries.

We are always looking to add new cakes to the choices available – what flavour would you like to see? Cherry and coconut? Or perhaps a chocolate mocha cake? What about cakes made with vegetables such as beetroot, courgette or parsnip?

Come along to the Tearoom, which is open Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm and Saturday 9am to 4pm, and let us know which cake you would like to see available.

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Keep baking

| Too busy to make

I have always enjoyed making cakes and love receiving positive feedback from people who have enjoyed eating them.

Last year, I made over 350 cakes, more than 100 cupcakes and 18 traybakes for The Earl Grey Tearoom in Southborough. The favourites there are a Victoria sponge, carrot and mascarpone, coffee and walnut, gluten free chocolate fudge, lemon drizzle, coconut and lime, white chocolate and raspberry, cherry Bakewell and blueberry and lemon. I also made 46 gluten free chocolate cakes, 42 trays of Rocky Road and 36 traybakes for The Riverhill Himalayan Garden near Sevenoaks. Around Christmas, the focus switched to Christmas cake and Panforte – and all the time, I have been making chutneys, jams, marmalades and jellies with fresh locally picked fruit or dried fruit.

One of the biggest challenges is keeping stock of the basic ingredients so I don’t have to go shopping every time a cake is ordered. So rather than buying eggs by the dozen, I usually buy 36 a week and some weeks, even this isn’t enough! I used about 1800 eggs last year, or 300 boxes of 6. I also have to keep stock of different types of flour (plain, self raising, rice, gluten free plain and gluten free self raising) and sugar (caster, golden caster, light soft brown, light muscovado, dark muscovado, Demerara and icing) not to mention baking powder and gluten free baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cocoa powder, dark chocolate, desiccated coconut, lemons, limes and oranges. I rarely have an empty fridge or larder!

If you want a cake made for an occasion, please contact me as I am happy to help. You can contact me via this blog, or through Facebook or Instagram and we can discuss timing and price. I have a good selection of cake tins but most are 8″ round (with a few 7″ round) or any size square or rectangle (as I have a multi size cake tin, up to 12″ square). Any recipe can be resized based on the number of eggs used.

Thank you for reading.