Setting up your own cake business from home. 5 pieces of advice.

I have had a blogging break. There is good reason for this, in April 2014 I decided to put my baking passion to good cause and start baking as a business. Some of you might have come to the blog through my post about my experience on The Great British Bake Off  , the experience made me ill. Really ill. I came down with a nasty bout of Shingles, it was a real wake up call about how the stress of the experience had affected me. I decided there and then I still wanted to follow the path of eggs and butter - but in my own way. While I was off for many weeks, bored (my over active mind never settles even when my body doesn't allow me to get off the sofa), I hatched my plan and it worked. The success of my business Lil's Parlour in less than a year has blown my mind. It has been hard work and a real learning curve. Most of all it has been satisfying and 9 months on I thought I would share my "top 5 pieces of advice" for anyone thinking of starting their own baking business. My little nuggets of advice are from my own experiences in the last 9 months and hope they help you. 

1) Make sure you are legal. 

I cannot stress this ENOUGH, this is why it is number 1 .. when you are producing food for people you need to cover yourself and your customers. No ifs, no buts.  "I only bake for friends of friends" is not a good enough excuse in court. You need to register with your local authority 28 days in advance of a single eclair coming out of your kitchen. You also need to get a copy of Safer Food Better Business and start filling it in. Be prepared to totally re-haul your kitchen, Monday nights dinner cannot be stored alongside Tuesdays cake in the fridge. All your dry goods will need to be stored in Tupperware and date dotted. You will need to think about allergens very carefully, if you have a passion of peanut butter it needs to be stored FAR away from your baking ingredients.  I also suggest getting yourself a food hygiene qualification. I completed the Level 3 in 6 weeks online, it was not only enjoyable but a real eye opener. Level 3 is probably excessive for most peoples tastes but  here is a great link to the Level 2.

 When you bake for other people it's not like when you cook for your friends and family. There are rules and paperwork. Lots of paperwork - can you be bothered with this? Think about it carefully before you commit. It's not an optional commitment. Have high standards from day 1. If you plan to take your goodies out on the road and sell at food festivals or other outdoor events you will need liability insurance. Finally don't forget the tax man .. you have to register as a business (I am a Sole Trader) and read up on tax returns and accounting.

2) Have a vision and stick to it ..

During my first few months trading I tried to be jack of all trades to all people. Bread? Sure! .. patisserie? No problem! It turned out to be a very time consuming operation where I was skipping from one thing to the next, basically I was trying to please people, not myself. I sat down and wrote a vision for what I wanted to produce, what did I enjoy doing the most? For me it was my own recipes done in tray bake and loaf form. From then on I wrote up a menu and stuck to it. I designed a logo and a colour scheme and stuck to it. Cafes are far more enthusiastic about having you on board when you have a clear vision and a clear brand. Also think carefully about your market. Who do you want to buy your cakes? Where do you want to sell them? Do you want to go high end or somewhere in the middle - these are all things you need to write down before you think about trading.

3) Go play up your own end! 

Or in other words do NOT copy other people. This is your business and it needs to be your vision. You need to develop your own unique style and recipes and trailing pintrest and facebook pages stealing other peoples ideas is not unique (but shockingly common). Obviously there are lots of things in the baking world that are going to be a copy - a Victoria Sponge for example, 4 ingredients make a sponge .. but how can you make yours slightly different? I use a higher fat content butter to make a lighter, moister sponge and home made vanilla infused sugar. Develop your own unique style of frosting flourishes or flavour combinations .. do something. Just don't stick to the same old same old. You need to stick out in the crowd. 

4) Price realistically and learn to say "no".

Remember, you want to run a business. In layman's terms this means you want to make profit.  It's a dog eat dog world out there but I have learnt that quality speaks for itself and customers will pay for quality. Do not undersell your talent and your TIME. TIME do you hear? It's not free - it needs to be added in, oh and how about that gas you use from your oven? The sanitizer, the shopping trips, petrol, cake boxes? ... These do not come for free. If you are working out your prices from ingredients alone your profit will be poor, in fact why bother? I am just speaking in real terms here. I think baking is one of the only arts (because it is an art - don't underestimate your talent) that people will offer you £20 for 2 days work. You may be tempted to take it - a sale is a sale after all but I really implore you to say no from day 1 to offers like that.  Be realistic about how long something is going to take you and charge accordingly. Also be realistic about how much you can take on, I would now much rather say no than produce a substandard product because I am pushed for time or rushing. 

Remind snotty customers that Asda (other supermarket ranges available) does a great range of celebration cakes - they come with free preservatives and e-numbers. If you value yourself and your talent your customers will value you. If someone claims they can get the same thing in Poundland let them go to Poundland. Really.

5) Get ready for the heat .. 

As in if you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen. Running your own business is HARD WORK. HARD, HARD work, it is all consuming. It's nice to have a vision of standing the kitchen  in a pinny singing along to Doris Day but in reality you will be wearing a white coat, hair net and probably cursing your oven. You will probably become obsessed with finding a really good "allowed" hand cream and the washing up bottle will make you feel a bit queasy.  Be prepared to live your business 24/7 to succeed. The cake making will probably be the easy bit, the marketing, social networking, accounting, paperwork, cleaning (oh so much cleaning). Be prepared to be getting up at 5am to finish something off when you didn't get to bed until 1. Be prepared for customers to be contacting you on a Sunday, holiday, 3 in the morning (true story), be prepared for "emergency orders" and last minute changes. In a nutshell it's quite stressful - I say that in a positive way as I get a buzz off stress. I think that's probably one of the reasons I have been successful so far. Also another thing I have discovered is your customers really start to depend on you. It's a great feeling but also a pressure - can you live with this pressure? 

Finally .... a bonus tip ... 

6) Don't be a stranger.

One of the LOVELIEST things to come out of Lil's Parlour is the amazing array of people I have met also running their own enterprises. When you go to events do talk to people as these people will probably become your support network. Customers become friends and sometimes so can the competition! By surrounding yourself with a network of people in the same boat you can not only exchange ideas but you can support each other when the going gets tough, it leads to repeat business and new customers. It is true to good news travels fast (but bad news travels faster - see tip 1)  I have popped a few links to some of their businesses (mostly Facebook pages) below. 

Stevie at Maidens Fayre

Becky at Mommy Bear's Wax Melts

 Under Pressure Espresso

Spacehopper Events 

J21 Coaching 

Kate Molloy Communications 

A is for Alice.  

Pin up curl  

 

Why I shall never enter a TV "talent" competition ever again.

I have been sitting on this blog post for quite some time. You know one of those times when you wonder if you are doing the right thing? This is one of those times, however, in the spirit of democracy I felt now was the time to put my thoughts down on paper. Not only for myself but for anyone else that thinks they might like to be on the TV baking, sewing, or any other endeavor where you will be "judged" for the publics entertainment. 

You see my life has been on hold for 18 long months while I tried to live my dream of being in the Bake Off tent. From the first time I saw The Great British Bake Off I was hooked, so hooked I decided at the end of series 3 to apply to see if I could make it into the "tent of dreams". I sent off my application back in October 2012 (jeez, that long ago!) and thought nothing else of it. To my surprize after a string of phone conversations, answering the same mundane questions over and over and over again (I think this is the first test!!), 2 auditions (of which for contractual reasons I cannot tell you about!) I found myself on a train down to London to see a TV Psychiatrist. I HAD MADE IT ... I had made it as damn close as I could get for that series, I had been chosen to be the "Stand-by" to be honest I was gutted, but there was always that glimmer of hope that one of the 12 going into the tent might drop out, get stage fright, or just not turn up. The ever so friendly and ever present casting producers (who called daily for a pointless catch up) insisted it was an amazing opportunity, I had made it to number 13 out of 11,000 applicants. 2 other contestants (who shall remain nameless) had been stand bys before and it was a golden ticket for series 5, all I needed to do was stop my life for 5 months, prepare, test and submit all the same challenges as the guys who were going to get fame and recognition, oh and sign all rights to my recipes over to the BBC in the process. I didn't quite fit into the age / race / disability / insert-other-equality-gone-mad-statement here, but hey, you will next year .. sign here .. 

Well, it was irresistible .. wasn't it? 

My husband thought I was nuts, in fact to be honest, he was really cross with me for saying I would fulfil the role of "close but no cigar" for that year. I started on a 10 week crash course of staying up until 4am after my full time role as an SEN teacher developing, tasting, writing, submitting, tweaking and perfecting 9 weeks worth of signatures and show stoppers. The calls from the producers kept me going, "your recipes are AMAZING, we are so sad you are not on", once filming started I even recieved a lovely message from Mel & Sue saying "keep up the good work, see you next year!" It made the £1500 (this is an approximation but train tickets to Manchester, London, London again, and again oh and again plus ingredients, equipment and salary lost from the weekday auditions) easier to bare... as did the weekly phone calls telling me who had gone, what the technical was and who had got star baker. These names obviously meant nothing to me but I was assured it would be SO exciting to watch the series and know the outcome. I lapped all this up like some wounded puppy dog, just really pleased to be so close but so far .. I had to be on stand-by for the first 4 weekends of filming and was called to make sure I was at home so if I needed to be picked up it would be plain sailing. I even had to pack a bag .. That was my entire Easter holiday cancelled ... again, my husband was so pleased .. when most teachers were relaxing after a heavy term I was up 18 hours a day practicing filo pastry and pacing up and down waiting for a phone call.

Then the series was aired - and yes, it was thrilling, but annoying in equal measure, especially as I too had submitted a peacock bread, chai tea bread and the best opera cake ever (not as good as Mary-Ann in series 2 though, that was EPIC!) ... nothing stabbed harder than when someone with the same name as myself crashed out with a terrible decorative bread in the shape of a tomato. For godsake I was thinking ..  I could have done better than that. I know I speak for the majority of viewers who are saying the same thing but I had inside knowledge and when one of the contestants who had been very rude to me at a London audition went out in a blaze of underproved dough I grinned like a cheshire cat. This person was rude to me because I tried to help them when their own bake went horribly wrong , I suppose this should have been my first warning sign of ability to bake vs. entertainment value.


At the end of the series I could not WAIT to apply again. I thought this is IT, I have practiced like a trojan for 12 months, in fact I am now really quite good .. I know my Joconde from my chiffon, my filo from my flaky, what could possibly go wrong? I had even spent hours and hours designing recipes in different categories thinking if I got through it wouldn't be as stressful as last time as some things would be prepared.   So when after an agonising wait I received a phone call from the "new team" who asked me exactly the same questions as last year I was invited to another audition, and another where I was told I was sublime, wonderful darling, have you ever considered being a professional? We will see you soon .. I went home feeling pretty happy, I thought all that money and time invested is going to pay dividends this year. I had to sign the same gagging contracts ..  I was on my way .. 

Then strange things started happening, phone calls to my nearest and dearest asking if I had any qualifications in baking. No they said. They rang my employer asking for a copy of my qualifications, guess what - only a degree in History and a PGCE.  My husband was particularly confused as he said he felt like he was being interrogated. "They were just so persistent baby, they are convinced you have had training". Oh how I WISH I had been trained, it would have saved a lot of bloody time in the kitchen practising. I thought nothing of it and presumed it was just a new line of questioning. Then more calls started to come, "have you ever sold cake" the answer again was NO, of COURSE I haven't. Do you think if I was making money from my passion, my love, I would be applying to go on TV? You have to sign an agreement saying you had never sold cake or baking as a business, did they think I was so stupid to lie?  The reason for wanting to be on the Bake Off was so simple, I have always loved baking, I have always loved the programme, I'm a bit of an extrovert, I like a challenge .. why not? 

Then I heard nothing. We had been given a deadline and told to clear diaries for a possible appointment in London (you have probably noticed they want a lot of your time!). I waited, and waited, and lay in bed daydreaming about biscuit towers. I became tired and moody, I became quite difficult to live with. Work was the only place where I wasn't thinking about bread. At home I was still "practising". The phone rang and in about 20 seconds all my dreams came crashing down, "Hi Lucy, I'm afraid it's not the news you want to hear, your face doesn't fit this year". (YES - that is what she said - nothing about my baking my FECKING FACE DIDNT FECKING FIT!!). We also think you should open your own bakery as a professional .. I couldn't actually speak. My mind went blank and I just hung up. Obviously then a tirade of expletives came, but unfortunately for the poor lamb they were directed at my mother who at that time was driving me back from Matalan!

So this is why I will never, ever put my talent and integrity in the hands of a bunch of TV producers again. All the time, money and emotional investment .. when it came down to it my, "face didn't fit". Last time I checked the shape of your nose or the colour of your skin didn't correlate with your ability to whip up a brilliant brioche which is what I thought the series was looking for. A week ago I was very, VERY angry, I felt used and tossed aside but as I write this I just feel pretty stupid. Stupid and a lot poorer. Maybe it just proves that normal people like me shouldn't enter the idea of going near a TV show, to me people have feelings, emotions, hopes, dreams and aspirations. To them I think I was just always just a name on a piece of paper (who this year had the wrong face again.) 



**A note on this piece, this is my own opinion and may not represent your own experience - I don't discourage anyone to apply, just know what you are getting yourself into!) ** 

The face that didn't fit - with the one person who kept me sane - and was also right all along (damnit!!) 

Angel Food Cake - Hints, Tips & Tricks

Angel Food Cake is about to become really popular .. as the first technical challenge on The Great British Bake Off Series 4 we are all going to enjoy watching contestants wrongly greasing the tin and over beating the batter I am sure .. I haven't even seen the show yet (In fact I am writing this 2 days before it is aired) but I have made Angel Food Cake for years and am familiar with what can go wrong ... 

Angel food cake is a lighter than air cake that should melt in the mouth. It is a fatless sponge in a similar vein to a Genoese sponge but has a moister, lighter texture. I find it rather plain on it's own but it comes in to its own with a fruit compote (I love stewed apples with cinnamon) and lashings of double cream. In America it is often referred to as "white cake" and can even be purchased in packet cake form. It is usually baked in a round bundt tin.  The perfect cake tin for angel food cake can be found here , I love Nordicware tins, they are a real lifetime investment. I wonder if there will be a sell out of these after the airing of the show? Luckily I already have my own .. This one is really great as it has it's own little feet - why would a cake tin need feet I hear you ask? Well angel food cake needs to be cooled upside down, you flip over the whole cake so the sponge can "relax down" ... before the days of my bundt "with feet" I used to flip my cake and let it rest on a jam jar, the feet are far more stable though and you are far less likely to come back to a tipped over cake from other members of the family making a cup of tea and knocking your cake over (or in my experience Mothers that think you have done something really strange and turn the cake back over). 

I am not going to write up "my" recipe for angel food cake as it is a pretty standard science. I recipe I always use is here.

But I am going to write up my top tips ... 


1) NEVER grease the pan, never, ever, in a month of Sundays grease the pan. This is because the cake NEEDS to stick to allow it to cool upside down. Not even a sneaky spray of cake release, really, nothing. As for the parchment paper .. leave it in the drawer, no greasing means no lining either. 

2) Cool your cake for as LONG as you can, preferably a couple of hours, or if you can over night. This gives the cake plenty of time to stablise and relax into shape. This will make taking it out of the tin so much nicer and will avoid lumps of cake falling out when you remove it from the tin. 

3) Fold your flour in in as few folds as you can using a metal spoon. You have spent ages beating air into those eggs, you need to keep as much as you can in the batter to make sure the texture is light and fluffy. 

4) Use room temperature eggs, preferably separate your eggs a few hours before you use them (in a similar vein to the French macaroon). 

5) Once your cake is in the tin ready to go into the oven give it one sharp tap on the bottom of the tin, this will "pop" any big air bubbles and give your cake an even texture. Only one though - you got to keep that air safe! 

5) Use a long, bendy sharp knife (I actually use my cold meat carving knife) to help the cake out of the pan, sticking as close to the edge of the pan as you can, be patient with it, but if you have left it to cool for long enough there shouldn't be a huge issue. 



I am now off to sulk because if I had made it through to the final 13 this year I would have NAILED this dammit! It will be very interesting to see if any of my tips would have helped the newest batch of bakers when the first show of the new series is aired this Tuesday, 20th of August on BBC at 8pm. 

Bumbu Bali - THE taste of Bali in a jar.

Another savoury recipe today, (I promise i'll be back to baking alchemy soon!!), but I promise you this is a cracker! I am lucky enough to have been to Bali on my honeymoon. We didn't really know what to expect in regards to food, I had a vague spattering of knowledge about Indonesian food but the Balinese are proud of their roots and despite being officially part of Indonesia they do things there own way. 

 I didn't have a bad meal in Bali, in fact I would go as far to say we didn't even have a mediocre meal, we ate everywhere we could .. road side shacks to the 5 Star food at our hotel.  Our hotel was the Alila Manggis in the quieter East Bali and they are known for their Balinese cooking courses, my budget didn't stretch to a course but that didn't stop me bothering the chef for recipes! He was wonderfully helpful and after a busy service stood with me in the empty restaurant where I eagerly scribbled down recipes on the back of an envelope (Rick Stein style - get me!!). The chef explained the most important ingredient in any Balinese kitchen is the "Bumbu", this is a paste of wonder. It can be used to marinade meat and works wonderfully as a marinade for chicken or lamb for satay,  it is brilliant as a base for spicy soups or stews and most importantly the base of my most favourite food of all time, Babi Kecap - a slow cooked pork in Kecap Manis, a sweet Indonesian soy sauce.  This recipe makes about a jam jar full, it can be kept in the fridge for about 7 days but if you portion it into an ice cube tray it can be frozen and used in portions almost like a spicy little stock cube. Me and my husband have had sort of serious discussions about making this up and selling it at farmers markets. It's THAT good. 

I have changed the recipe slightly to make the ingredients more obtainable to us here in the UK. I think our supermarkets are getting much better (hurrah) but I still couldn't find everything here. 

You will need: 

25g of birds eye chillis

115g shallots 

50g garlic cloves

25g galangal (Thai ginger) A little tip for you, they have started selling fresh galangal in my local Morrisons store. Very impressive! 

30g Ginger 

1.5 tsp of ground turmeric

25g of palm sugar (if you really can't get palm sugar brown sugar will do)

50g of ground almonds

1 stalk of lemongrass

1/2 tablespoon salt 

50ml coconut oil 

2 Bay leaves 

150ml water 

1) Place the chillis (de-seed if you prefer less heat), shallots, garlic, galangal, ginger, palm sugar, tumeric, salt, coconut oil and ground almonds in a food processor (I have this awesome little Ninja that I picked up on QVC it is my desert island kitchen gadget and perfect for this job!). Blend it all together until it reaches a fine paste. 

2) Place this blended mix in a heavy bottomed saucepan and turn on the heat, cook this spicy paste for a couple of minutes (careful not to colour or burn it) and then pour on the water, add the bay leaves. Bruise (smash ..) the lemon grass stalk and add this to the yellow paste of wonder .. it will look like this : 

3) Keep the heat on medium and continue to stir and "cook down" the paste for about 30 minutes, the water will evaporate and you will be left with a thick paste. 

4) Remove the bay leaves and lemon grass stalk and pour the paste into a clean jar or any other convenient container (I really don't recommend plastic though as the turmeric will stain it). 

Your paste is now ready to marinate meat, pot into a spicy soup, knock up some nasi goreng or satay. I have even used it to marinate a couple of pork chops to serve with coconut rice for a quick mid-week meal. 

BANG BANG! Sweet Chilli Sauce

Okay, I admit it ... this isn't REALLY baking is it? But I'll tell you a secret about me .. not only am I obsessed with baking .. I am actually obsessed with FOOD in general! So from now on i'll be dropping in a few savoury goodies to hang out alongside my sweet treats! It seems we have been having some really good BBQ weather here in the UK at the moment (ok, i'll admit it, it's boiling .. our houses were not designed for this kind of of heat in mind). So, my husband and I have been spending a lot of time outside indulging in some al fresco dining. I love nothing better than rummaging in the freezer to see what we can throw on the BBQ. Last Sunday I found a whole host of odd forgotten lamb burgers, sausages and even venison burgers (HOW might I ask did I forget these??) I had chucked in the freezer at one time or another. We had a nice meat glut going on .. but very few condiments, there was the obvious ketchup, a bit of mayo and even some sour cream but *shock horror* we had run out of my absolute condiment of the moment .. sweet chilli sauce! I wondered if it would be easy to make and following the Thai principles of "hot, sweet, sour, salty" I knocked this together - I think it worked really well .. and from now on will be called "BANG BANG" sauce because it packs quiet a punch - if you prefer a milder variety leave out the chilli seeds. It is really easy to do, I just used a standard mug as a size measure. The sauce will keep in a sterilized bottle for up to 6 months - but remember with chillis the heat calms down the longer you leave it. Our current bottle lasted exactly 3 days so we certainly won't have that problem .. anyway, here goes .. my "bang bang" chilli sauce .. (By the way I have no idea if this is traditional sweet chilli sauce - it was a Sunday afternoon guess - I am sharing because it worked really well :)

Ingredients

4 red or green Thai birds eye chillis (red is traditional, I only had green in!!).
3 chunky cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon of tomato ketchup.
3/4 mug of sugar
1/4 mug of white wine vinegar (or any white vinegar will do).
3/4 mug of water
1 tablespoon of corn flour (corn starch to any US or AUS readers!).
1 tablespoon salt.


First take a teaspoon of the water allowance and mix it up with the corn flour to make a sludge - place this to one side.

In a food processor pop the chillis, garlic, sugar, vinegar, ketchup & salt. Whizz this up until all the chillis and garlic are chopped and you have a paste.

Place  this mix in a heavy saucepan and add the water. Give it a stir.

Bring to the boil and simmer for about 3 minutes.

Add the "sludge" of cornflour to thicken. Keep simmering for another 5 minutes or until it is at your required consistency. Thinner for dipping, thicker for smothering ..

Bottle up, and wait to cool ...

Enjoy!

London Baby! Fortnum & Mason and the best Black Forest Gateaux of my life .. so far.

Should I start with an apology for the lack of blogginess? Is blogginess even a word? This is a strange time of year for me. As a teacher my professional world goes BOOM with a pile of verification, marking and portfolios and everything else has to go on the back burner for a couple of weeks. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel though, lucky for me my birthday sits right in the middle of teaching panic at the end of May and we always try to do something that gets me totally away from that pile of folders. 

This year I wanted to go to London, mainly to visit Fortnum & Mason. As a tea-a-holic and a non alcohol drinker (but definitely eater for the sake of cake of course!!)  the thought of visiting the mecca of tea blenders has always been simmering at the back of my mind. I have visited London for business and pleasure SO many times but never managed to go. So it was with a mixture of excitement and trepidation I finally walked into that duck egg blue gilded palace of tea and excess. We didn't book for afternoon tea so just walked into the icecream parlour on the first floor. There was no queue and we were seated quickly and with the type of finesse you would expect from F&M in a lovely seat. I instantly squealed with delight at the WMF cutlery so shiny you could use it as a mirror and ordered the Afternoon tea and a piece of Black Forest Gateaux from the "Viennese" selection, I was also tempted by the studel but BFG is my most favourite cake ever (tacky but true ..) so it had to be that. There was an amazing choice of ice cream sundaes on offer, all hand made with really interesting flavours - the gin and tonic sorbet sounded delicious (although I chose not to drink alcohol I love the taste of it!!). 

Here I am with my tea .. how GORGEOUS is the teapot?? After going on and on about how gorgeous it was (the silver teapot is a trademark of F&M and you can even buy a loose tea with the namesake) my husband sneaked off to buy me one .. but came back with a forlorn look when he realised the price tag of the beautiful teapots was a good months shopping budget .. another day .. a teapot so famous will be available in the future. I did come away with a deco style tea strainer and £50 worth of loose tea though .. oops! The BFG was to die for, the cherries plump and packed full of rum, the chocolate mousse layer light as a feather and the cream unsweetened with a huge swirl of whipped double cream on the side (how I prefer it). I think that it is the best slice of BFG i've ever had - and i've eaten this cake in Vienna, Budapest & Prague - All in all it was absolutely delicious and well worth the £14 per head (yep, cake and a cuppa £14 .. but it was a treat!!). I now need to make a special trip to Germany to see if they can better it ... that gives me an idea for a holiday ... 

Friday night and the baking cupboard of doom ...

Friday evening ... here finally! Not only Friday night, THE Friday night before half term. As a teacher this particular Friday evening always has a wonderful feeling. A whole week of freedom, lie ins, time to get everything done I have needed to do for the last 6 weeks lies ahead, all fluffy and euphoric (and a pile of portfolios to put into order for verification .. but lets not think about that right now). 

Tonight I decided I had 3 choices .. all VERY rock 'n' roll and befitting to my 32 year "wild child" old self as you will see .. 

1) Lie down on the comfy sofa (husband at work so the comfy sofa is MINE all night) drink copious amounts of tea and get my Tudor fix in the company of Anne Boleyn, Thomas Cromwell and a bunch of very clever, interesting historians .. right up my street (I am a history obsessive for those who would like to know ....) 

2) Sit at the kitchen table rocking out to Absolute 90s, pretending I was still at The Room in Hull as a student back in 1998, a bit of Jarvis, a bit of Primal Scream, a blow out to Rage Against the Machine .. and start on the portfolios  finish a painting I started 2 years ago. 

3) Bake and catch up with the blog. Bread for the weekend, a cake to use up a very kind birthday gift of tons rhubarb from my bosses allotment and maybe even a cheeky play with Blob, the sourdough starter. 

It was a no brainer .. bake of course .. then I remembered .. THIS .. THE CUPBOARD OF DOOM ... 




The cupboard of BLOODY DOOM ... last time I baked, last week a porter cake for a birthday I SWORE I was going to sort the cupboard out. I can't get to anything, reach the sugar, out falls the baking powder. Fancy a vanilla pod? Not before whole jar of cinnamon falls down and breaks all over the floor (true story). Don't even get me started by the meringue ruined by a small dredging of ground almonds & salt as I reached for the cream of tatar. Want the really bad news? This is only cupboard 1 of 3 nightmares .. there is also the bread cupboard and the tin store, I couldn't show you the bread cupboard. It's X rated. The rye flour cries when I open the door "let me out of this hell hole." 

Do you know what I did? I jumped straight on the sofa and got better acquainted with Anne Boleyn. I just CAN'T do it ...

So any hits, tips or words of comfort to help me do this tomorrow (or how fellow bakers keep organised and saintly) would be well received. It's times like this when being creative SUCKS ... maybe I could call it modern art? Could you cope with your baking things like this? How do you stay organised? If you can help please leave a comment or call 0800-HELP-ME immediately!