Valentine adventures

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Karen

The lowest point of 14th February 2011 was a puncture! I had a boot load of cakes and was assisted by a garage who applied a gentle touch to corrective measures. 

This year, with 5 times the number of orders, I was ready for anything. 13th February was a late night, icing by moonlight – and 14th February was a very early start.

Oh what a lovely day! I visited every corner of Nottinghamshire with a little diversion into Derbyshire. The cakes were highly bespoke and careful labelling of boxes ensured that the right messages were delivered to the appropriate lover. I was greeted by lots of surprised smiles and happy vibes.

Everything went to plan and I ended up somewhere near Rufford, ready to talk to BBC Radio Nottingham about the ‘14 days of love’ campaign I had been taking part in. I parked up 10 minutes before the broadcast and smiled out over the fields.

But then, panic! No mobile phone signal!

A five minute dash later I pulled into a little layby on a country road, much to the surprise of a lorry driver who was sitting there quietly having his lunch. I don’t think he was really expecting a Cakemobile to appear from nowhere. I had a little chat with Francis Finn, who seemed quite surprised that people were sending cupcakes as love tokens! 

I was expecting to be pretty pooped by 14th February evening, so I met with my hubby for a lovely relaxed lunch. I had smoked trout and tapenade – really delicious. I couldn’t manage pudding, which you might expect given my proximity to vast numbers of cakes in recent hours.

And the hubby? Naturally, he had a cupcake… with a heart on. Aah!

Soppy Valentine cakes

Posted in BBC Radio Nottingham, Classy Cupcakes, Frances Finn, Living the Cupcake Dream, Nottingham cupcakes, Valentine's cupcakes, Valentine's Day, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Calming chaos

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Karen

I got a lovely compliment from an ex work colleague recently. She said that the reason she enjoyed working with me is that I turned chaos into calm. What a revelation for me! Being usually at the sharp end of any trouble/action, I rarely had time to think about the quiet and harmonious bits. 

My work now is largely calm. Settling down to produce huge numbers of cakes can promote a meditative atmosphere and that has been very welcome over the last couple of years. 

Being a pretty organised business, I wouldn’t ever say we have got to really chaotic levels – but when the oven is beeping, the mixer is buzzing, the door knocker is striking, the emails are piling up and the phone is ringing, it can be a bit frantic at times. The good news is that the consequence of each of those alarms usually signals something nice – delicious cakes, enthusiastic customers etc. 

Reflecting further on the compliment, I wonder whether I have sought out chaotic situations in the past, maybe specifically in order to rectify them!  

Even after all this relatively serene period, I don’t think the urge to bring harmony will ever go away. But I can think of worse aspirations.

Posted in Classy Cupcakes, Living the Cupcake Dream, Nottingham cupcakes, Posh patisserie, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

Rebranding

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Karen

Classy Cupcakes is getting bigger! We are becoming ‘Classy Cupcakes and Posh Patisserie – bespoke baking’.

We are changing our name in order to reflect more truly the goods we have been producing for our customers for some time now. The website and marketing are being updated but our offer remains the same – high quality, freshly baked goodies – cupcakes, specialised patisserie products, birthday cakes, celebration cakes and catering for special events. 

Our customers love to come to us with their specialised requirements and we love a challenge – a perfect match! After 30 months of operations, we have now catered for lots of different events and amassed many testimonials, some of which can be viewed here: http://www.thebestof.co.uk/local/nottingham/business-guide/feature/classy-cupcakes/86981/review 

We continue to offer our very popular ‘Art and Science of Baking’ workshops for kids age 5 to 14, delivering bespoke arrangements either in the Classy Cupcakes kitchen or a venue of our customer’s choice.   

I am already looking forward to all the wonderful goodies we will be producing for our lovely customers this year. As always, full highlights will be posted on our Classy Cupcakes Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Classy-Cupcakes/139011602796472 

Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can help with any ‘specially baked’ requirements…

Posted in Classy Cupcakes, Living the Cupcake Dream, Nottingham cupcakes, Posh patisserie, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

European inspiration

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Karen

It’s been a month or so since we got back from our wonderful InterRail trip and my ‘Classy Cupcakes and Posh Patisserie’ head is still full of the lovely goodies and lifestyles we witnessed there.

It wasn’t just the abundance of freshly baked cakes, pastries and beautiful bread that was so appealing, it was the fact that these products were so readily available and it was perfectly normal to have an independent baker on what seemed like every street corner.

In these shops there was hardly anything packed in plastic with cardboard packaging, or carrying a really long sell by date, or with greasy, sticky and gloopy toppings and steeped in artificial colours and flavours. The gingerbread looked like it had just been decorated; the bread had been baked that morning and was all going to be sold the same day; the cakes were decorated with real fruit or some fancy, yet simple topping; the pastries were screaming to be eaten.

Interestingly, there was not a cupcake in sight (though I saw a china one in Vienna). But I saw fondant fancies, cookies, jellies, sugar candy, marzipan pigs, meringues, handmade chocolates and sweet bread rolls. The shops were beautiful. Window displays glittering out in to the street; rows of slicing cakes in various stages of consumption; some little personal trinkets detailing the character of the shop; and goodies piled high.

Lots of the accompanying signs were hand written and therefore a bit shabby, but I like to think the baker had an urge to make some Cannoli or Fornarine that day and they were hastily promoted.

 

It was extremely interesting to be in Europe just as Prime Minister Cameron was distancing the UK from any detailed part of the EU rescue negotiations and later to hear the rousing response that had yielded in the polls. Culturally I yearn for a more European approach to life in the UK. Where is the civilised city lifestyle which incorporates all ages? Where is the pride in local producers? Where is the individualism? Where is the pride for heritage? And where is the style…? It is in short supply!

Posted in Baking, Classy Cupcakes, European baking, InterRail, Living the Cupcake Dream, Nottingham cupcakes, Patisserie, Posh patisserie, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Comfort food

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Karen

I’m on my annual cut back of food intake! The need is quite high this year given my carbohydrate fuelled romp around Europe just before Christmas, the icing on a rather liberal view to dieting last year. I do feel good at the moment, in some senses better than ever, but I did put a bit of weight on last year. I am sure people assume I am eating too many cakes, but they forget that the cakes are my living! My bad eating habits usually recur when I am too busy to think about food during a day and eat badly (and sometimes quite generously) when I finally realise how hungry I am.

I also have intense reactions to the ‘weight police’ such as: “who are you to tell me what size I should be?” No doubt this is one manifestation of soft feminist principles I have written about in this blog before. I hate the fact that bigger people are often labelled as greedy and/or lazy and/or stupid and/or funny. There’s one main reason I am bigger than size 10 –I love food, in good times and bad!

The most disappointing manifestation of this is seeing models and beautiful people with perfect figures cooking comfort food on TV. When I see such TV shows (and adverts), I am often disappointed that this extra pressure is piled on women. There must be so many people following diets at this time of the year, confused about their size and goals.

I will admit to still being quite confused about this issue, 40 years on. It would be really good to get to grips with it. And by that I mean to just be more or less happy with whatever size I choose to be. I think the key for me has to be who you are trying to make an impression upon. As with so many other things I am discovering recently, the answer to that question simply has to be ‘yourself’.

Posted in Classy Cupcakes, Comfort food, Diet, Living the Cupcake Dream, Nottingham cupcakes, Weighty issues, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off

Successful businesses

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Karen

Happy New Year, readers! 

I have just spent quite a bit of time away from my business on a wonderful InterRail adventure around Europe. There were long, scenic train journeys to ponder upon and beautiful sights to marvel at. Living on a strict budget was part of the adventure.Everywhere we went was quiet and very Christmassy. It was a perfect environment to reflect on the last couple of years and think about the future. 

Just before we went away, I heard the Nottingham designer Paul Smith on the radio, sharing advice he would give our government in these dismal times. He was discussing the notion of giving things a bit more time (than we are currently used to) to develop. This was mainly in relation to starting a business and he talked about his early experiences of being compelled to make lots of money quickly in order to ‘be successful’. It bought me back to my previous musings about not simply using money as my measure of success these days. Building up the Classy Cupcakes business has allowed me to indulge my passion, spend more time looking after my family, develop my creativity, bring happiness to my customers, as well as making some money.   

I have a very occasional urge to go back to the ‘conventional’ work that I have done for years (office based or something similar) but this New Year I am really not ready to give up my baking dreams as there are still many things to do. I have come back from my trip refreshed with plenty of ideas.   

This year, I will be enriching the Classy Cupcakes offer. So far, I have felt compelled to take absolutely everything on that has been offered, normally at the cost of my resting and sleeping time, but in the next year I will be refining my offer, branching out and taking on more help. 

Watch this space, cake lovers!

Posted in Christmas with the family, Classy Cupcakes, European baking, InterRail, Living the Cupcake Dream, Nottingham, Nottingham cupcakes, Paul Smith, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Blog writing

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Karen

During the spring, I spent two months or so not writing my blog. When I started again it felt like there was quite a build up of feelings to express.  Maybe just seeing things in black and white helps me make sense of whatever is going on in my life, or at least admit that I can’t make sense of it right now!

Sharing feelings is quite a new thing for me. I was very good at bottling it all up, stiffening that upper lip and attempting to excel all the time. I feel such relief in simply saying how it is now – just being me with all that brings along. I hope to get much better at expressing my feelings as I get older. It sometimes takes quite a while for me to get an expression right but I know I have pinpointed a feeling when the sentence has worked!

We are going away on our European trip on Sunday. I will be writing every day, but not posting again until just after Christmas (I am back straight into a truck load of Christmas orders).

I just wanted to say thanks to all my fantastic customers and friends for all your wonderful messages and all your support during the year.

Have a great holiday!

Karen

x

Posted in Blog writing, Cake adventures, European baking, InterRail, Living the Cupcake Dream, Nottingham cupcakes, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off

Young Apprentice

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Karen

I absolutely love this programme, it’s a fantastic study of anthropology. The younger version is undiluted, without the game playing so prevalent in the adult series. 

As a reflection of the business world, both versions fall a bit short, in my view, with oversimplified tasks and costings (who pays the rental for the best pitch in the shopping centre?) but the programme is perhaps understandably all about the personalities and highly entertaining as a result. 

I’ve got my own lovely young apprentice at the moment – fourteen year old Rosie, daughter of a regular customer, is doing the skill section of her bronze Duke of Edinburgh award with Classy Cupcakes. I have really enjoyed being exposed to her energy and enthusiasm.  We have run a few events and set up a few cake stands together to date. We have the cake making and decorating elements still to do. 

I do have a vague memory, a long time ago, of being the young and bouncy, optimistic and sometimes naive youngster on the block as a student and young professional in the textile industry. I cheerfully did what I was told, had bags of energy and embraced every new challenge enthusiastically.

Nothing much has changed over the decades! But I do think it’s been even easier since I started doing a job I enjoy so much.

Posted in Classy Cupcakes, Duke of Edinurgh Award, Living the Cupcake Dream, Nottingham cupcakes, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk, Young Apprentice | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off

Public speaking

Posted on November 20, 2011 by Karen

Unaccustomed as I am, I have been invited to speak at some interesting places over the last few months. And as I’m sure my close associates will tell you, I love to talk! 

Yesterday I was on Radio Nottingham with James Lloyd (lovely man) again. Great fun, I really enjoyed reviewing the papers with Nick Parkhouse who was brilliantly provocative. 

Earlier in the week I joined the Long Eaton Dawnbreakers Rotary club (at 7am) for a chat about the inception, creation, operations and ambitions of Classy Cupcakes. It was great to talk to people in different businesses about the challenges of my own enterprise. It was a very supportive environment and they generously shared some fantastic advice. 

One of the more memorable such talks this year was an evening presentation I gave to a Ladies Group in Derbyshire. The group has been established for more than 40 years and it is mind blowing to think about the diversity of the presentations they must have seen.

I had not predicted how an all female audience, most a generation or two ahead of me, would provide another level of context to my story. They were so appreciative of the dilemmas I have recently faced and the juggle between the career, business brain, creativity and step-maternal instinct. So many of them had faced similar predicaments and shared freely.

I finished the presentation by reading my very first blog out loud and was unexpectedly hit by the genuine emotion provoked both in me and others. 

In all these talks, I find it amazing to sum up my recent history in about 30 minutes. I am proud and lucky and SO supported – even by strangers.

Posted in Alverston Ladies Group, BBC Radio Nottingham, Classy Cupcakes, James LLoyd, Living the Cupcake Dream, Long Eaton Daybreakers, Nottingham cupcakes, Public speaking, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

In search of perfect patisserie

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Karen

I can’t believe how fast Christmas is approaching. I think the lovely late summer weather has messed with our minds this year. 

The diary shows Classy Cupcakes is in for a very busy few weeks, there are lots of exciting orders and events coming up. But a wonderful respite in the middle of all the activity is a long planned trip to Europe for me and my husband. This is our longest holiday for years. With family pitching in to help run the house in Nottingham, we are making a 10 day budget InterRail trip to Venice, Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Frankfurt and Paris. We are maintaining the true spirit of InterRail by staying in cheap hotels, not eating in restaurants and travelling light. The major middle age relief will be the use of wheeled suitcases instead of rucksacks! 

I am planning to use the trip to search for some perfect patisserie. I am hoping to find some local bakers serving their local communities with freshly baked regional delights.  I am expecting to be inspired to new baking heights by the trip. I will be posting regular updates on the Classy Cupcakes Facebook page and I will be tweeting merrily from@classy_cupcakes. There will be lots of time to think, write, read and chat on the trains.

But it was my mum who said the wisest thing (as ever) whilst I was recounting my ambitions. “Don’t forget to look out of the window”, she said. 

On our arrival back in the UK, Classy Cupcakes will be supplying boxes of freshly baked Christmas goodies for collection or delivery on Dec 22nd, 23rd and 24th.

Capacity is limited and we are already taking orders so please do get in touch as soon as possible if you are interested. 

The Christmas offer is a large cake box, bursting with delicious smells and flavours, filled with:

10 Christmas themed cupcakes (lemon & ginger, white chocolate & cranberry, chocolate holly), 10 mini mince pies, 6 ginger cookies with stem ginger decorations, 10 mini snowflake cupcakes, 6 freshly baked cinnamon rolls, 6 exquisitely decorated Christmas bauble biscuits (with ribbon to hang on your tree).   

All these lovely goodies are £30 if you collect from Beeston or £35 if you need delivery to addresses within NG1-NG10.

At random, one LUCKY BUYER of this product wins four boxes of 12 Classy Cupcakes to be redeemed any time during 2012. (This is our little Christmas present!)

Posted in Baking, Budapest, Classy Cupcakes, European baking, Frankfurt, InterRail, Living the Cupcake Dream, Nottingham cupcakes, Paris, Patisserie, Perfect patisserie, Prague, Venice, Vienna, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Grandad Tom’s marketing principles

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Karen

As a very young child I remember excitedly going to visit my Grandad Tom in his newsagent shop in South London.  My brother and I stared up beyond the sweeties and papers to my lovely smiling Grandad, not taking a moment to think about the lifetime of work that got him there. 

There were two extremely wise things I always remember my Grandad saying.

The first was a wonderful slogan, perfect for an over stimulated girl – ‘do it now’.  It has grown into something much bigger than ‘don’t postpone that odd job’ for me, a modern translation is ‘go for it’ – and I do! 

The second was a marketing ethos. He said that every time a customer came in his shop and asked for something he didn’t stock, he immediately ordered some in. This was the action of committed shopkeeper and a canny retailer – an excellent way of building trust with customers – why would they go anywhere else? 

I am really interested in on-line selling (which of course is inevitably the way everyone will shop in a decade or so), with a nod to my Grandad’s service principles. I think lots of people will agree that big supermarket shopping is pretty soulless, with little human interaction. The number of self checkouts increase and people even use them competently these days! There’s a lot to be said for wandering around greengrocers, butchers, delicatessens and cake shops but few people consistently have either the time and/or the money required to do so. These shops undoubtedly have engaging experts to speak to and stimulating, high quality products, but they are shut at the times when lots of people want to shop. 

I am trying to sell in a modern way, using traditional values:

-          I produce bespoke products fresh as they are required, not just filling a shop full of goods that the customer must come and choose from.

-          I offer whatever the customer requests, but only if I feel I can competently produce something excellent. 

-          I operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via a combination of email, facebook, phone calls, twitter, and text. 

-          I am hoping to attract people who trust my skills and knowledge, hence lots of pictures on my website and testimonials. Running my workshops helps here too.

-          I need people to trust that I can interpret their requirements, Facebook is really good for this, showcasing my work as it happens and live interactions with customers for all to see.

-          I am hopeful that people get a flavour of my motivation and values via this blog,

-          And get to know my personality a bit better from my cake related tweets. 

Despite all this new fangled technology, reassuringly, for the moment, nothing quite substitutes for face to face meetings with customers and their families, which I enjoy the most.

A beautiful shop!

Posted in Living the Cupcake Dream, Marketing, Nottingham cupcakes, Running a business, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

The pleasure of acceptance!

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Karen

I wrote a stonking blog a few weeks ago, about my old workplace.  Carefully crafted, it took hours to write and outlined my detailed thoughts about a particular recent incident. Then I chose not to publish it.

Trying to make sense of the senseless is a wasted pursuit. I am so delighted that I have rejected the notion of playing in a crowded arena of egos for a while. I have come across saddening behaviour again and again – indifference to people’s feelings; power craziness; battles for points of principle whatever the consequence; charmless conduct. A lot of things are made much clearer, given time.

My new found acceptance of being my own person and not trying and impress everyone I meet is improving my life enormously. Every day while baking, I feel my ego gently settling down. I can see more rounded pictures about my history where significant things happened to me. Things I have resented for years are largely a consequence of just being in the wrong place, at the wrong time; making poor purchase choices; working in the wrong department; being involved in an unwinnable arguments and board room battles.

Additionally, I can see that wonderful things in my life have happened because of chance meetings, hidden possibilities uncovered, a trusted gut feeling and miscellaneous connections uncovered by chance.  In most cases, I think, it’s a case of just letting go and being open to whatever is delivered.

I have also learnt to accept that a fair share of any responsibility for good and bad times is mine.

That flaw of being so keen to gain acceptance from others means that I get most confused when I think about situations where I have felt rejected. But it’s hard for me to come up with an explanation when it involves others being ruled by motivations I do not understand. At least I can be a bit easier on myself these days by trying not to think I could have changed things or been better in some way.

Every day, I feel so lucky to be able to play to my strengths and keep a check on the weaknesses. I will continue to rely on my sunny disposition to keep me out of trouble, trying to enjoy life as much as possible and sharing the passion and pleasure!

Posted in acceptance, Classy Cupcakes, Living the Cupcake Dream, Nottingham cupcakes, Strengths & weaknesses, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off

4 parties, 3 weddings, 2 big cakes and a concert

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Karen

Summer passed – and then came back again briefly, just in time for Classy Cupcakes’ busiest weekend to date. Not only was it chock full of wonderful orders to fulfil for lovely people to help celebrate happy events, I also attempted to behave like a normal human being and have some ‘leisure’ at the same time. My plan was to sing in an East of England Singers concert on Saturday night, which called for extra choir practise on Friday night and Saturday afternoon, with the performance on Saturday night.

This was a pivotal moment for the business as I had to organise more help than normal, along with maintaining some semblance of normal sleeping hours so that I didn’t fall asleep whilst singing the Bach motet!

In 24 hours, Classy Cupcakes supplied 100 lolly themed cupcakes, a lolly top cake and an ice cream van shaped cake to feed 100 for the lovely ice cream lady Kelly’s 30th birthday; 85 posh cupcakes for a corporate do; a set of quirky chocolate & pink 50th birthday cupcakes; a cute purple wedding set with edible spiders; 18th birthday classy black and white cupcakes; a tower of aqua and gold wedding cupcakes and an enormous set of 130 Cadbury’s purple and white cupcakes with a matching top tier cake for a romantic wedding in Loughborough.

I received help from my wonderful new baking colleague, Fiona, who has come to work with me part time. She has been a pastry chef at the Victoria Hotel in Beeston for 4 years and has exemplary baking credentials, along with a scary amount of shared experiences (funny how that happens sometimes, isn’t it?) I’ve also now got a part time driver, Mark, who has mastered the Cakemobile. Two lovely friends also offered to set one of the weddings up so I could go to afternoon Bach rehearsal and set off very excitedly with the goods on board their own Cakemobile. It gave them a little insight into my wonderful world of sharing good times with my customers.

They all did a fantastic job and I’m pleased to say that every event went without a hitch.

To say thanks for the wedding set up, I got my friends tickets to see the concert (maybe not quite what they had in mind!), which took place in West Bridgford Baptist church on a quite unnatural sultry October evening. The concert was full of beautiful music and as I sang I felt very happy as I thought of the hundreds of people around Nottingham and Loughborough tucking into our hard work.

I tumbled into bed later and slept soundly, feeling very satisfied – content with my work and grateful for all the help.

Posted in Bach motet, Cake adventures, Classy Cupcakes, Concert, Cupcakes, East of England Singers, Living the Cupcake Dream, Nottingham cupcakes, Support mechanisms, Victoria Hotel, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Children

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Karen

Despite the huge amount of cakes that have been lovingly created in the Classy Cupcakes kitchen over the last two weeks, the house is surprisingly quiet since my eldest stepson went off to do a Masters course and my middle stepson excitedly went to University for the first time. Life here had reached the highest crescendo during this summer holiday, with all rooms being occupied in some way, lots of visitors, traumatic results days, birthdays, reunions, anxiety and celebrations. Now we are left with relative calm, a clean hallway and a confused cat.

I think the youngest stepson is enjoying being the focus of attention, but he can take it or leave it depending on his mood, with the biggest choice of rooms and devices to enjoy or invite his friends over to share. 

Looking after these boys for the last 6 years or so has helped me understand better the choice I made when younger to not have kids. I was born in 1964, and so clearly remember the messages coming in from all around as I grew up – disgust at womens’ subservience, the importance of financial independence, the ability of women to do things just as well as men.

After graduating, I became very career focussed – running things, promotion seeking, travelling all over the world, at times arguing over fair treatment in relation to men. I was quite adamant about not wanting to allow myself to like children, becoming a bit flustered around babies and losing regular touch with friends who had kids. I used to resent people for using their children as excuses (as I saw it) not to participate in activities.

In hindsight, I think I made the right choice, for me. I have a desire to do things ‘the right way’ (aka according to Karen) and I am sure I would have struggled very much balancing my ambitions with the obvious needs of helpless babies.

After a struggle and a lot of soul searching, I now feel very lucky that these lovely, interesting & remarkable boys needed my help. I don’t think I would have found ‘the real me’ without going through this experience.

I am so excited on their behalf about what life will bring along for each of them and what they are going to discover about the world and, in due course, themselves.

Posted in Boys, Classy Cupcakes, Feminism, Living the Cupcake Dream, Living with boys, Nottingham cupcakes, Stepmother, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Sweets for my sweets

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Karen

I love making cakes that people find IRRESITIBLE. I have some wonderful regular customers who seem to have developed a mild addiction to Classy Cupcakes. I know their favourite flavours and they trust my design ideas. Great relationships!

Cakes and other sweet things have always been a big favourite in my family. I will admit to a little weakness for sugar but there are worse things to be addicted to! 

I recall with pleasure: special cakes and treats for birthdays; gingerbread biscuits hanging in the Christmas tree; the excitement of swapping comic coupons for chocolate at the newsagent; extreme portion control that still allowed chocolate as a calorie counting student (5 smarties a day in the 2nd year); my first ever crème brulee in Paris (AMAZING) and my eternal weakness for good ice cream. When an excellent ice cream parlour opened just round the corner from our house a few months ago, in the first week my husband, 3 stepsons and I spent more on ice cream than petrol!  We decided to nip that behaviour in the bud.

There has always been plenty of healthy eating going on in households I have been part of too, starting with my mum and dad’s year round allotment hauls.                                             I have a lifelong adoration of well cooked, fresh food and I love sharing it with others. And sometimes having a big pudding to finish with!

What’s wrong with that…?

Posted in Buying and cooking good food, Classy Cupcakes, Cupcakes, Living the Cupcake Dream, Nottingham cupcakes, Puddings, Sweets, www.classy-cupcakes.co.uk | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off