Cake now, Bernard! For one day only!

Thursday night baking

Thursday night baking!

One day, in the (not too) distant future, I fully intend to be living in my spiritual home of Northumberland, running a little tea room called ‘Dr B’s Cakes and Teas’ (thanks, Sandy, for that inspirational name!).  It will be especially loved by people who struggle to write in offices, and I might have a little corner where crafty types can sell their wares.  All sounds very idyllic, doesn’t it?  Well, maybe it really will happen – I can’t see myself hanging around in the Tower of Doom forever.

I really do like making cakes – it’s how I show people that I love them.  In fact, the title of this blog post refers to just that: I once turned up to a hen weekend several hours after everyone else, and I’d been sure to send my cakes in advance – a sneaky but sure fire way of ensuring that they liked me when I arrived!  We decided I should have a mail order service for those moments when only chocolate fridge biscuit will do (hence, cake now Bernard!).  So it’s only right that my fundraising efforts should revolve around the constructing and eating of cake.  Next up, an open house cake day: next Monday, being a handy Bank Holiday, I’m inviting friends and neighbours to pop in and eat/buy cake.  I’m providing the tea, the coffee and the soft drinks – and COPIOUS amounts of cake – and my friends have been asked to bring their pocket money!

Today I made meringues, two fruit cakes, and some magical honeycomb (ready for the wonder that is honeycomb chocolate boulders, yum).  Tomorrow evening it will be a couple of lemon cakes and some tiny white chocolate bites.  On Saturday, I’m off to London for the day, so Sunday will be full on baking of Victoria sponges, fairy cakes, rice krispie cakes, and who knows what else…

Much as I love baking, I imagine that by Tuesday I’ll never want to see cake ever again!!

Cakes of Happiness!

CakesHaving decided I was going to make cakes to help towards funding my way to Australia, I sold my first batch on Saturday morning.  On the advice of willing victims, who have previously eaten a lot of my cakes of badness, I made some chocolate honeycomb boulders, some white chocolate tiny cakes, and some toffee crispy cakes.  Much baking on a Friday evening after work, but actually quite fun: homemade honeycomb is its own reward in terms of appearing like actual MAGIC from just three little ingredients!

So it was off to choir on Saturday, having sent out an email letting people know there was going to be a cake sale.  I had no idea what to expect, and half thought that nobody would even buy anything.  How wrong I was!  Before choir even began, almost all the gift bags of chocolate boulders had gone – it turns out that women in the choir weren’t even bothered about doing a taste test: the lure of chocolate is a powerful force!

By the end of choir, I’d managed to shift the whole lot – all thirty-something gift bags!  And I made a profit of £40, so my little money box is smiling broadly now.  I’m so chuffed at the generosity of people around me – imagine, I make cakes, and people pay money to eat them – how brilliant is that?!

I’ve decided on several more cake sales, including a fun day at home at the end of August: an open house invitation to my local friends, at which they can come and drink tea and eat cake, and even buy some to take away with them.  More on that coming soon…

Meanwhile, I’ve had something of a brainwave on the subject of my sponsored event.  My husband did his first triathlon this weekend (I know!  And he can still walk at the end of it!), and suggested I should aim to do one as well.  So guess what: in six weeks minus two days, I’ll be doing a sprint triathlon!!!!  Well, it’s a challenge, isn’t it?  And I definitely wanted any sponsored event to be exactly that: pushing myself all the way to Australia!  Be warned: I’ll be looking for lovely people to sponsor me soon…