A thing of beauty

Yessss!!!!! I've just ordered my KitchenAid mixer and I am quietly very excited... looking forward to making mountainous meringues, soft delicate sponges, bouncy bread etc etc. And I've also got a meeting set up with a cake shop. I think I might be making some progress in my culinary life. I've been marketing my cakes recently and it seems to be paying off. I am thrilled. I think my Granny would be proud as she was the queen of meringues at the WI in Petersfield in the 70s and people would come from far and wide to taste her delectable cakes and tarts. Maybe I'm carrying on a family tradition... I love the creativity of baking. It’s fun. I enjoy choosing my ingredients and giving myself the challenge of a new recipe. It gives me huge pleasure. I trained in Illustration at art college and I have tried to channel my creativity into my baking.

I was given a lovely cookery book when I was small called “My learn to cook book”. It showed how to make chocolate crunch, victoria sandwich and croque monsieur with wonderful illustrations. They all became firm favourites in our family. I turned my nose up at school lunches and would regularly bake a victoria sandwhich with lurid coloured icing on top and include it as part of my homemade lunch. It was an important stage in learning how to take care of myself at school. As anyone who knows me will testify, I continue to believe in giving little presents to myself as part of the reward for life's hard struggles! I haven't decided yet which recipe I will chose to christen my lovely new mixer but I hope that it will set a precedent for happy baking.
 
Oh yes, on a crazy impulse I decided to enter the Great British Bake Off Competition on the BBC. There's a new series scheduled for the spring. I'm not sure whether to laugh at the idea of competitive baking but found this programme strangely compelling... anyway a friend suggested I have a go, so why not? Wish me luck!