cakes and baking stress....!

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I took it upon myself to present a “small” cake stall in my mother’s annual selling exhibition of her work at the beginning of November. Looking back, I had no idea how much planning this would need. I was surprised to find that my breezy attitude and casual manner of preparation had its consequences when push came to shove on the actual occasion and I fought hard to keep my stress levels to a minimum for the cause. Fortunately I managed to pull my act together and made a grand total of £182.63 over two days-not a bad start.

I love cakes, and was lucky enough to be presented with a cake book by Harry Eastwood under the unusual title of “Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache” last year. (For anyone even faintly interested in unfamiliar ways of trying new recipes, I would highly recommend this book!) It is simply filled with cake recipes that use vegetables as ingredients, from beetroot to butternut squash and celeriac. Unpromising as it sounds it is surprising to find that biting into a “forbidden chocolate brownie” does not give one the powerful taste of beetroot. It is not only cleverly concealed within the chocolate but contains the moisture and indulgence of the cake in the most wonderfully unique and delicious way.

I “planned” my baking (or perhaps not so much so…) over a full two days’ worth of rushing around whipping out 25 orange squash cupcakes-one tray after the other from the oven whilst rustling up “pistachio chocolate cake”, “potato victoria sponge”, and “rose water fairy cakes” at the same time. It was utterly manic. I had the whole kitchen littered with cooling racks, cakes whose flavours I couldn’t remember, endless muffin trays stacked up on the sides, and always, always a fine layer of icing sugar on every available surface. It got to a point of being in the middle of concocting yet another “LA American cupcake” only to feverishly realise there was no more white rice flour- or that the lemons did not have enough zest on them to give the distinctive flavour and personality so required by Mrs Eastwood. There was nothing for it but to call on kindly neighbours to lend me some more of this or that, until I could afford to pay them back. Thank goodness I live in a village where the nearest person is 100 yards away, or I don’t know how I’d cope. It is one thing to live in the country, baking cakes and filling the house with warm smells, but another to run out of ingredients at the crucial moment. This is where my lack of planning could have gone horribly wrong.

Fortunately, when the time came I had on hand approximately 6 cakes of all flavours, more than 35 cupcakes of varying interesting ingredients and names, and a tray load of thick “forbidden brownies”. However my artistic customers did not seem hugely enticed to venture outside to the rather chilly porch where there were no frills or charms except the cakes to look at. After a rather depressing first day in which I had veered from patiently standing in the chill air by my stall to meandering in and out of the crowds tentatively asking for sponsorship, I miserably observed that I still had 6 cakes left, plus odds and ends of brownies that would soon rot if they were left uneaten. I decided I needed a different tact.

I rose bright and early on day two and set about the task of reconstructing my stall- with suggestions, guidance and advice from my family. I brought everything inside and rustled up an old table directly in front of the large ceiling to floor hall mirror, covering it in an appropriate frilly tea-cloth, laying out my wares on my mothers’ gleaming pottery plates and arranging the friendly glow of a lamp to the side. The effect was quite radical. The stall now looked as though it could have been a part of a tea-shop with the array of cupcakes shining in the soft lamplight and a large coffee cake taking centre stage on a raised stand, kindly produced by a fellow exhibitor.

All day I had people eyeing up the stall, peering down at the cakes, some raising their eyebrows kindly before hurrying away, others gushingly buying a few cupcakes for their “little ones”, or perhaps an elderly lady bagging a whole cake for her afternoon tea-time. It was an interesting learning curve. I discovered that if you want to capture people’s general interest, the best tact is to be by the stall-all the time. For someone who is naturally quite fidgety, talkative and likes to be “doing something”, this could be incredibly boring. But once I actually got someone stopping by and showing interest, it provided excellent opportunity to use my talkative mouth, promote sponsorship for the RNLI- and of course advertise the unique cakes.

Being asked “why are you raising money for the RNLI?” was an entirely different matter. Telling the story of my near drowning and skilful rescue was difficult to just thrust out into the open. But within reason, this is a big part of fundraising-feeling a passion for helping a charity that has benefitted you-and doing something about it. And ultimately my passion for helping the RNLI lifeguards is because they saved my life. The RNLI may be a very well supported charity which is why their people do their job so brilliantly-but they rely solely on that support. Without it, they would struggle with the resources to save lives as they saved mine.

By the close of the second day, I had successfully swept the table clean of goodies, plus people offering to sponsor me on my swim a mile and walking challenge. My sense of purpose in this long journey of fundraising has been lifted by my cake sale; but people supporting me in my efforts to raise money in physical challenge raises the morale even higher. Training for swimming and walking are well underway. Cakes and exercise-they CAN work together! Customers got delicious, home-made cakes, I got funds, lots of burnt (but still very edible) cakes and yet I am exercising it off, whilst out there some old dear or perhaps a cluster of children are devouring my freezer proof, unique vegetable cakes with relish. Thank-you for reading!

If you would like to read “my story”, please follow this link: http://belladenyer.blogspot.com/

If you would like to make a direct donation towards my “swim a mile” or “walk the north coast of Cornwall” challenge, please follow this link:

www.virginmoneygiving.com/ISABELLADENYER

Or alternatively you can get in touch with me directly-please comment below if you wish to do so and I will get back to you privately! All donations, support and sponsorship will go straight to the RNLI beach lifeguards. I thank you for your support.