Do ya feel lucky, Punk?

Well... do ya?

Thanks to the suggestion of one of my customers I am now broken... She wondered if I could offer a sample box of the cakes that I make so that people didn't have to commit to a big tray of something that they may not like. Such a great idea but there are limits to what I can produce at the moment. So I thought about it and decided that it would be fun to offer a Lucky Dip selection box containing 8 slices of cake (2 of each type) so that it would always be a surprise for the customer and I could decide what I wanted to make on that day.

I posted a message on Thursday evening and it went off like a rocket!

Today I have made up 9 Lucky Dip boxes. That's quite a lot of cake, 72 slices in fact. I would tell you what I decided to bake but then I'd have to shoot you. You will have to wait until they've been delivered...

End of Week One

Well goodness me what a week that was!

I'd thought it would start slowly and build to a maximum of 30 cakes a week because this is as much as I can comfortably do on my own. As of yesterday I have sent out 20, mostly cookie bar bakes but some drizzles in there too. Long may it continue - I'm already getting enquiries about Christmas orders and next week's order book is filling up. I am genuinely amazed but also delighted.

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Things I have learned this week include:

Everything takes longer than you think - prepping, cooling, packing etc.

An Aga isn't reliable enough to produce consistent results for sale. All hail the mighty combi microwave.

The margin of error is tiny - 10g over the weight cost me an additional £3.85 in postage.

The kindness of friends is wonderful and overwhelming.

Spreadsheets are a pain in the arse to set up but it's endlessly fascinating to read the figures at the end of it all. Even more fun than watching your book go up and down the Amazon chart :)

Cookie dough is dense and therefore heavy. I may have to change the size of the tin to make it smaller in dimension but deeper.

Sticky toffee pudding likes to sticky to the lid. Again, a re-think on packaging is required.

Tying things up with string and assembling boxes is deeply satisfying.

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All in all it has been a good week. Today I am doing nothing. At. All. Well other than waiting for the Ocado van to arrive and throwing a tuna bake together for tea later in front of Strictly. I love weekend TV again now that summer is over and the old favourites are back.

Something to whet your appetite :)

Well goodness me

What a great start for the VSCC! I've been rushed off my feet yesterday and today. As I type I have cookie bar bakes cooling and I'm about to start some sticky toffee puddings. The first delivery of cookie bars should have arrived on doorsteps this morning so I'm waiting slightly nervously to hear what people think.

Fajitas for us tonight and as I need to re-shoot a photograph of the quinoa flatbreads so I thought they'd go really well. I've not had a great success with quinoa on the whole, I find it rather overwhelmingly beige (in colour and flavour) but these flatbreads are really lovely and very very easy to make. The peanut soup in this photo is rather nice too.

Cookie bakes cooling

And someone will be getting a lovely surprise in the post :)

Let's get this party started!

Good morning and welcome to my new blog :) I know you can find a million food blogs out there but surely there's room for another one? Yes it's self indulgent and yes it can be tedious to read but in truth I've missed writing about the dull minutiae of my life now that Ma has passed away so as I've just set up my own mail order cake business I thought this was a perfect opportunity to start again. The clue is in the 'dull minutiae' rather than the 'food blog' bit, there will be quite a lot of photos and some food chat but plenty of other stuff too.

Yep that's right, a new mail order cake business, scary and exciting in equal measure and something which allows me to work from home. After nearly three years out of the job market it feels like the only way to generate income for me now so I hope it is successful enough to keep us fed and watered. I toyed with a business idea using my photography but it is difficult to make even a small living doing that, although I haven't kicked the idea into the long grass just yet - it may just be that that idea is a slow burner instead. I do a daily photo blog at Blipfoto and there's a widget on the right which shows the last nine photos I've posted on there, if you want to see more of my stuff you can click on that instead and it will take you to my page.

So cake. At present I am selling through Facebook here and you can follow me on Twitter @V_SmartCookieCo I sold six salted caramel choc chip cookie bars last night and I'm just delighted that they went so quickly. What are they? Oh I'm SO glad you asked me that... think brownie crossed with a cookie in a tray, packed with white, milk and dark chocolate chips and home made salted caramel. Best eaten warm with some vanilla ice cream. Hell yes.

They look like this:

and you get 9 big fat slices (or 12 more modest sized ones) per tray. Honestly and truly, how can you resist?

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In other news... I've been writing a baking book for Traidcraft over the last six months and that project is now more or less finished. Just a couple of things left to make this weekend, an intro to write and some proofing to do and I'm done. So there may be a photo of some walnut blondies later... And please bear with me over the next few days as I tweak things on here, it takes a while to get everything just the way you like it. 

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If you are a new follower and want to read my other blog about my time with Ma you can find it here: Her Absent Mind