 We have fantastic news: we've recruited a new home baker to our team!. We took five minutes between bakes to interview our latest recruit, Katy, from Brislington, so you guys could get to know her a little too... Hi Katy, welcome to the team! What's your favourite cake to bake? I love baking pretty much anything because I enjoy the process, I find it really relaxing. In terms of what I like to bake to eat myself, you can't go wrong with a really good chocolate cake, for friends and family its my triple chocolate brownies, I'm pretty much not allowed to turn up to a family gathering without them, that of my coffee and walnut cake, that's my parents favourite. How did you first start baking? I was fortunate to grow up surrounded by really good bakers / cooks and got involved from a young age. My mum would bake with me as a kid and I remember my Nan baking a lot at Christmas. We did home economics at school when I was about 12, we made scones and I think it started from there. I funded part of a trip to Morocco when I was 15 by selling cakes and that's when I realised I had a bit of a flare for baking. Do you have any particular cake triumphs you'd like to show us? I made a sugar skull cake for my husbands birthday a few years ago that was pretty impressive and more recently I made a victoria sponge cake for my sister-in-laws birthday which was a bit nerve wracking because everyone there is a really good cook, thankfully everyone absolutely loved it. Have you a favourite cake style or flavour from another country?
Black Forest Gateaux is my absolute favourite cake and I also love Greek Baklava and Portugese custard cakes which don't taste the same anywhere outside of Portugal. What are you most looking forward to in working for 280 Bakes? Baking things that customers will delight in! It's really nice to be able to create things that other people enjoy. Thanks Katy - we look forward to seeing the cake you bake! The Team @ 280 Bakes
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 *UPDATE*
We've just extended the deadline for applications until Monday 29th May 2017. Go for it! Good news folks, life at 280 Bakes is busier than ever, so this means we're recruiting again! Are you a keen baker? Do you work part-time or less, and live in Bristol? We might have the job for you! We're looking for another freelance cake making enthusiast to join our team of four bakers; male or female, we need an additional pair of 'part time hands' with great organisational skills, able to follow strict recipes and delivery deadlines. Experience in baking vegan cakes or gluten free cakes would be a bonus, but really, we're looking for someone reliable, flexible, trustworthy, and of course, a good baker. There are often opportunities with 280 Bakes for working events (e.g. Bristol Vegan Festival, Community Summer Fairs) for extra optional paid work. Please note: All office work (e.g. social media, advertising) is done centrally. This is a 'bake and deliver' role only. BENEFITS: Discount at cake supplies shops (e.g. Kitchen Cookshop), access to 280 Bakes recipes (top secret!) to use at home, social activities with the team (summer picnic coming up!) and more. Our Whatsapp group is buzzing with baking tips and feedback from within the team - we're a really friendly bunch, so you'll be made very welcome! NEED TO KNOW: Applicants must be over 18 years old, have access to a car for deliveries (Bristol only) and a smartphone. Start up costs are minimal - just £20 to cover your 'business in a bag' (t-shirt, business cards, guide to baking for 280 Bakes etc.). Along with all the tangible things to help you set up, we'll be here to assist with any queries and support throughout. Applications close Monday 27th May at 7pm. We reserve the right to close applications sooner if we find a baker we want to hire earlier than expected. Interviews will be via Skype/Whatsapp video call initially, then a face-to-face in your home kitchen with home baked cake sampling. Interested? Send us a message via our contact us page! Please have some photos of cakes you have previously baked and/or decorated available. Previous recruitment drives have produced some amazing talent, so we're excited to be looking for a new team member this month. Louise Owner, 280 Bakes We have a very special offer on this month - hope you've seen it? We're giving every customer who orders a cake from us during May a £10 voucher towards a food tour with the Bristol Food Tour. Our hometown of Bristol is becoming oh-so-foodie, and we're celebrating that with these great business partners of ours. How awesome is that?! Let's find out more about this local company, and the tours they run...  Hi Alice, great to have you on our blog! Tell us, how did your team get together, and come up with the idea for tBFT? We met through our boyfriends a few years ago and both clearly shared a love for great food! We had independently done food tours in India and New York which we really enjoyed and came home to Bristol wondering why such a foodie and walkable city didn't have a food tour. We didn't realise that we had both thought about the possibility of setting up a walking food tour until I announced I wanted to seriously consider it, and Jo said she would be excited to collaborate on such a unique-to-Bristol idea! We both bring different strengths to the business, plus our passion for this city, it's food culture and food generally! What is your favourite kind of food? Jo's favourite food changes all the time, but after returning from a three week holiday in Mexico, at the moment it's definitely freshly made soft veggie tacos, preferably with a fruity spicy salsa and a cold beer. My favourite food is definitely peanut butter or cheese but I also absolutely love Italian and Korean food too. I'm off to Berlin next week so I'm excited to find out what delicious food is on offer there too! How have you found Bristol for a small, new business? We have found it absolutely amazing! There is such a huge network of independents, and everyone is so supportive of each other. Starting the venture was definitely daunting but we couldn't have asked for a better city to do it in. We want to celebrate the amazing independent food offering in Bristol and it's been such a privilege to do so, plus people like to support us too because we are a small local business too so it's worked really well. Tell us about something new at tBFT? We have just launched the Great Bristol Food Tour, a collaboration with Cycle The City. The idea is that it will be a city wide food tour... by bike! We'll be telling the customers information about the local area, the stories behind the businesses we visit, plus, of course, there will be lots of delicious food to sample along the way. The addition of cycling means that tour goers will definitely be hungry! Tickets cost £40 which includes bike hire and all of the food. We're hoping to run these tours once a month and places can be booked through the Cycle The City website. Why do you think Bristol is a good location for your business? There is so many options of places to visit for incredible food, and each area of the city is so different. The amount of independent restaurants, cafes, markets, food trucks and pop-ups far outshines the offer of chains in terms of both of quality and price. It makes us really proud of the city that we live in, and being able to share our favourite foodie hotspots with tour goers is a dream come true!  How did you find out about 280 Bakes?
When we were planning our first vegan food tour we were let down last minute on the promise of a cake for our tour goers to nibble along their walk. A friend suggested we called on 280 Bakes to save the day and you most definitely did. Your Chocolate Peanut Butter cake has been a firm favourite on our vegan tours ever since! What's the future for tBFT? We're hoping to expand across the whole of Bristol and be running tours right throughout the city. We'd also like to be running more bespoke, private and corporate tours during the week, and continue to work on exciting collaborations and events with other independent businesses. We're so passionate about food that we'd love to organise more foodie events which are different from our tours so watch this space! All of our current and upcoming tours and projects can be found on our website. Thanks Alice, so great to hear more about your business. Here's to a busy touring and 'caking' summer! The Team @ 280 Bakes The weekend just gone (14th May 2017) seems longer ago than 'just gone' - so much has been going on since then for us.... A fresh spell of baker recruitment, day job baking, events organisation... We'd planned this blog post for earlier but it's just not been possible! Small business is rockin'! Anyway... Here we go! ----- Sunday was the Wiltshire Vegan Festival! Of course, we went along with our cakes and met the lovely people of Chippenham (in the main). This was the second festival of its kind in Chippenham, and it looks set to return again later in the year, due to the success - yay! Stay tuned into our newsletter to find out when the next one is. Here are some of the choice pictures from our day at the Wiltshire Vegan Festival. Photos are as follows... Top line: Our bestseller: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake, customer joy from Alexandra, and a special for the festival: Chocolate Raspberry Cake Middle line: Happy faces of young fans of 280 Bakes, two photos of our Twix inspired shortbread - the first to sell out. Bottom line: Some smaller bakes: Lemon Drizzle, Chocolate Cupcake (gluten free), Chocolate Hedgehog cakes, a Black Forest cupcake, and a photo of Marlon - a very enthusiastic customer! If you click on the images they should load a little bigger if they're not too clear right now. Thank you to MarlondonDJ and LaChicaVeganaOficial (Instagram accounts) and the family of cupcake lovers for allowing us to take their photos. Find out more about the Wiltshire Vegan Festival on their Facebook page - see you at the next one! The Team @ 280 Bakes  We're on Instagram!
Follow us here or click on the icon top right of this page. Easy! That's it, that's the news for today! The Team @ 280 Bakes  Introducing... Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake! This is our best selling cake, a real customer favourite. It's moist, soooo delicious, and we like to think a little good for your, packed with protein! Like all our cakes, our PB and Choc Cake is always home made in the kitchens of our cake enthusiasts, and it's also perfect if you're looking for something vegan (as over 65% of our customers are). Our baker Destiny, in Knowle, says it's her favourite cake to bake. The house smells amazing afterwards and customers are so pleased to see it arrive on their doorstep.  You'll always find our bestseller at the events we attend, and there's never any left at the end. To top that off (....with peanuts...), this delicious cake is now a regular on the Bristol Food Tour when the team host vegan tours. Thanks guys, for your support! Order your PB and Choc Cake today - you won't be disappointed! Every customer who places an order in May will receive a voucher for a future Bristol Food Tour. The Team @ 280 Bakes Our Louise has just come back from a road trip round Northern Ireland, and she's brought back some delicious, inspiring photos of cakes from across the water. These photos were taken at the Jolly Sandwich in Enniskillen, Swift in Carrick Fergus, and the Marble Arch Caves cafe. Getting hungry, anyone?! The Team @ 280 Bakes Our customers are all about good food (and quite rightly so!). With this in mind, we've paired up with the Bristol Food Tour (tBFT) this month to give our customers free vouchers to put towards an amazing foodie city walking tour with tBFT. How do I get hold of a Bristol Food Tour voucher? Simply order a cake from us during May, and we'll drop round a voucher for you when we deliver your cake. Vouchers are limited to one per order. Tours must be booked for dates between May and the end of August. Please contact the Bristol Food Tour for any specific queries or bookings. Bespoke tours for birthdays or team 'away days' can be arranged. Tell me more about tBFT... The ladies who set up the Bristol Food Tour company in 2016 were inspired by foreign city food tours in India and the USA. They caught the bug, and have made a successful business from the idea right here in Bristol. The unique tours the team currently offer are vegan ones, the original Stokes Croft tour, Southville area, and 'South of the River' tours, with more themes to come later this year. The tours include stories about the local area and Bristol's history, an introduction to the city's independent food scene and - most importantly - sampling some of the finest food & drink the city has to offer. Hen Dos have proven a popular customer base, and you definitely get value for money, with around 10 eating establishments sampled over each tour Some recent reviews... Tegan: Such a fun family day out, Jo was a fantastic tour guide, and even though I have lived in Bristol for about 6 years now, there were plenty of places I had never even thought to go to! The value for money is superb- endless treats.. Couldn't believe how much we squeezed into 3 hours! Jenni: Can't recommend it enough and I think it would be a perfect idea for a team trip or to kick off a hen weekend! Anthony: Whether you're staying in Bristol for any length of time or you're a local, if you like your food then this is a must to do activity! Want to see more delicious photos and find out more about the Bristol Food Tour? Visit their Twitter and Facebook, and they're also on Instagram @thebristolfoodtour. Now all you need to do is order a cake! |
AuthorWelcome to the 280 Bakes blog! Most posts are by myself, Louise, but if you fancy guest blogging, give me a shout! Archives
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