Where did the last two weeks go? I blinked and it was gone so onward we must go as we are heading into lockdown and a strange Christmas 2020? What the future holds I don’t know but I will carry on baking until I can’t find ingredients which I need. At present, I am buying from a food wholesalers so that I don’t take what is available in the shops. Thankfully the wholesalers I am using don’t charge a delivery charge so I am just paying for the ingredients which is great especially for a small business. I think if I had to go into a supermarket and buy my ingredients I would get a few odd looks just for the quantity of flour that I use and people are panic buying like they did in March I would have to close for a while. Don’t get me wrong there are some ingredients which I have to buy from the supermarkets but I have been in this business long enough now to know which supermarket has the ingredients I like or has the best deals and I tend to stick to my usual routine. It is not often I am caught short but there is one ingredient which I am struggling to get hold of which I have ordered from Amazon but there is a five week waiting list for. Tate & Lyle fondant icing sugar, believe it or not, and I really miss it as does my baking, especially my Peach Melbas. 🙁 Roll on the 16th November when it should have arrived by. Every time I go in a supermarket I look for it but it must be like gold dust as I never find it.
Back to the baking which I have been doing over the last two weeks non stop. Everything has been “Halloween” in my kitchen from the music to the chocolate moulds to the bakes and I have loved every minute of it. 🙂 I have had plenty to keep myself busy what with the Halloween Treat Boxes which were collected on the 30th October, to all the orders for my customers, both for collection and postal delivery.
I must say, I felt for a while that my business was slowing down with everyone going back to school and college, work and normality and then the local lockdowns started and the orders began again. With the children going back to school I felt okay with not being over busy as I needed to keep the children going as well as, my husband (who broke his arm). To top it all, we lost the buyer of our house, put our house back on the market, sold our house and now we have had an offer accepted on a property so my life right now feels like I am on as very fast train that is not going to stop any time soon. I just want everything to go smoothly and for us to move and then I can rest 🙂
In the mean time, the baking is my stress reliever and the cheapest form of therapy so bring it on. I will continue to operate as long as I can in a “covid safe” manner. I will not be handling cash so I will only be accepting orders that are to be collected when they are paid for in advance. All collections will be contact free from my front porch which will have been disinfected, including door handles, door frames and door to reduce the risk and I will reclean the porch between customers. Thank you for your custom and support through these difficult times. 🙂
I hold all the necessary certificates to run a home baking business which included the food hygiene certificate, the public liability insurance, allergy awareness certificate and the covid-19 certificate. I love baking, I think it is in my blood and I don’t ever want to give it up not even to use the teaching assistant course which I am studying for. If I do find a job in these strange times we are in then I will endeavour to keep the baking business going somehow. 🙂
However, my brain has jumped to “Christmas” and all the wonderful bakes which are to be enjoyed so please keep watching to see what is new on my page 🙂 Also, I do have a Christmas Recipes Book available to buy on Amazon which would be a great stocking filler.
It is going to be a strange one this year for everyone and as our mental health may strain under the pressure of the loneliness of lockdown please try to keep yourselves strong and don’t be afraid to ask for help if you are struggling.