Easy Pineapple Cake
This recipe does what it says on the tin - it's the easiest of the three. A good one to start with if you're not too confident.

Upside-Down Pineapple Cake
Any list of pineapple cake recipes would be lacking without an upside-down one. And this one has cherries in the ingredients - even better. As a bonus, here's a great vegan version, if you're one of our vegan customers.

The Best Pineapple Cake Recipe
I'm not going to lie, this recipe from My Cake School made the cut because of the frosting and filling. Just divine.

 Refreshing and flavourful - have a go at baking one of these today and let me know how you get on!

And if you're too busy to bake, we can deliver to you - just ask. (Bristol, Stroud and Portishead only).

Enjoy the sun - stay safe with the sunscreen!

Louise
Owner, 280 Bakes

Sometimes cake just isn't enough.

One customer in particular inspired this idea for our deliveries. She and her husband were on a cruise for six weeks - how lovely! - but they'd miss their daughter's birthday while they were away. Her favourite cake is Coffee Cake apparently, so we could easily sort them out there with one of our delicious home baked cakes. Mum and dad also requested a bunch of flowers accompanied the delivery - the final touch!

Guys, I think you got away with being absent. You daughter loved her delivery, a real surprise. Hope the rest of your cruise is relaxing, and when you're back home, you can bask in the glory of a organising a great treat for your offspring's birthday even while thousands of miles away.

Another customer of ours heard some bad news from a friend who'd discovered some health issues. To cheer her up, she asked us to send round gluten free cake  - Victoria Sponge, in this case - and a box of chocolates, since it was Easter weekend. That's what friends are for!

Surprise deliveries are our favourite - the smiles we see really brighten our day!

From roses to chocolate truffles, we can find the perfect combo. And from just £25 including delivery, you won't find a better service anywhere else in Bristol, Stroud or Portishead!

Have a fabulous weekend,

The Team @ 280 Bakes

Cakes shouldn't crack under pressure. Humans sometimes unfortunately do, but cakes should not. And when we say pressure, we mean heat. Simple 'doming' isn't an issue - cakes can be trimmed down before decorating, but what to do about the cakes which come out the oven with more crack than anyone ever wants to see?

Even the best of us have had a cake crack but there are some things you can do to prevent it happening again - even if they do make comical smiley faces sometimes.

Check your oven temperature
A cake can crack when it's cooked at too high a temperature, causing it to rise  too quickly without the structural support below and the flexibility in the crust. A cheap oven thermometer can help you calibrate your oven.

Easy on the baking powder
Go easy on the white stuff, as it can make the cake too excited and grow like crazy, too fast for an even bake. The same goes for baking soda - too much of either of these will make the cake taste a little 'off' anyway, so make sure you follow the recipe.

Problems with pans
Always try to bake your cakes on the middle shelf in the oven - top shelf baking is more likely to cause cracks. Dark coloured, heavy pans can also absorb more heat than lighter ones, so bear this in mind when you come to purchase new cake tins.

The Tea Towel Effect
Wrapping a wet tea towel around your cake tins while they're in the oven can help too. It's all about insulation and an even distribution of heat for an even bake. Silicone cake pans also insulate the batter better, but they do tend to cause more doming.

Don't over-stir your batter
Over-stirring can make the batter form too much gluten, making the cake dry, leathery and crack-prone. Just mix as the recipe says (e.g. mix until combined, beat for 2 minutes), and you should be ok. Obviously, this tip doesn't apply to gluten free baking - you're off the hook!

And if it all gets too much and you need some help, we'd love to bake for you - no cracks, promise!

We'd love to hear if any of our advice has helped with your cracking cakes. What's you're favourite tip?

The Team @ 280 Bakes

This month I set a sales target.

Now, in the past I’ve been sceptical about using targets in personal and business life, mostly to avoid stressing myself out trying to hit, and possibly failing to hit, said target, and not really seeing myself as a salesperson. It’s good to dream big, but was there much point in pushing so hard when I already work so much to gain customer leads? And is there too much at stake for my personal confidence and wellbeing in working so hard and potentially failing?

Encouraged by a business coach I’m seeing, I thought it couldn’t hurt to try to hit a sales target just once and see how it went…

So, one month ago, I set myself a target of generating 50% more cake orders than in the four weeks previous. Maybe that sounds a bit ‘finger in the air’, but the previous four weeks (May 13th – June 14th) was a good month for us in terms of order generation, and 50% extra would push our orders to 28 orders in 28 days. It had a nice sound to it, and I liked that.

What did I do to help generate extra orders this month?

Well, most of our orders come from Facebook – hail Facebook! However, our email newsletter list is growing, as is our Twitter and Instagram following, so these were all useful to help show potential customers the delicious cakes we are baking, and in turn, encourage new and existing customers to order our products. Added to this, we had Father’s Day orders to promote and we got a fair bit of attention online from replicating the lemon and elderflower recipe from the royal wedding.  Tying in with national events sure can help!

Interestingly, a large portion of our orders during this period were made by phone this month. Normally the contact comes in via email or Facebook in the main, so I wonder if the new attitude to marketing influenced this…

What was the result?

Today is the final day of the challenge.

Yesterday we hit the target of 28 of cake orders in 28 days – with a day spare!

Needless to say, I am over the moon. I may even enjoy a slice of cake tonight to celebrate. And all this happened in a month featuring a week of torturous hayfever, and three weekends away. Who knows what I could have achieved without a social life! (Kidding)

Celebrations aside, well done us, what did this mean for 280 Bakes?

• We baked for 18 new customers, 10 returning customers
  
• On Facebook we saw 31 new page likes (up 48%) – reaching a tidy total of 800 this morning - comments and shares of posts went up 55%
  
• Twitter was less impactful than Facebook (expected), but we still had some awesome wins here, including our first tweet from a Stroud customer (below left), and our highest ever impressions on a gorgeous customer photo (below right).
  

All of this will hopefully lead to more business growth, more baking, and more happy customers!

Has having a target helped?

Undoubtedly, yes. As expected, pressure built a little on myself to work harder, smarter, and to be more creative with thinking of things which people would like to see pop up in their busy lives. However, achieving that goal of 28 orders in 28 days – and a day ahead of our deadline – has given me more confidence and a real sense of achievement.

Honestly, if we’d been a few orders off hitting the mark, it still would have been an amazing achievement to increase orders by almost 50%. Setting a goal, I have realised, is not only about achieving specified things; it’s also about having a way to measure how successful your tactics are and how effective your communications planning is. Even if you ignore the detail in the numbers, knowing there’s been an X amount of extra custom over a defined period of time due to some hard work is a real boost.

I may even set another target for later in the year.

Sod it. Let’s nail that down. I am going to try to hit 28 orders in 28 days again during the month of September.

You think I’m putting it off? No apologies there. July is going to be a bit crazy in my personal life so I may need some space, and August is generally a slower month in the business. The kids are off, people are on holiday, and I figure (totally anecdotally!) that some parents take the time to bake with their kids. Plus, September is statistically the month with the highest number of birthdays – go figure – so birthday cakes may be in high demand.

Our bakers didn’t attend any local events this month, but potentially, when I run this challenge again, this could boost sales further when people try our cakes at a festival or market and decide to order more in the days or weeks.

Of course, now, I realise I am in fact a bit of a salesperson and it’s always been that way. It’s essential the good of the company. I’m not pushy, but I’m driven, I know our target market and I want to make my company a success. If that makes me a salesperson, so be it!

I want to say some ‘thanks’ before I sign off. Thank you, of course, to my bakers – you’re fab! Hard-working, creative and passionate, couldn’t have developed 280 Bakes to this level without you. Secondly, thank you to my husband for his patience / ability to ignore me and get on with it when I am working on the laptop or elbow-deep in flour.  Lastly, thanks to Robin, who made me try this whole target thing out – inspired!

Do any of you have small businesses? Do you ever set goals like this? I’d love to hear about your experiences – just comment in the box below.

Enjoy your weekend,

Louise
Owner, 280 Bakes
 

Much of this will apply to another and many other job vacancies, and having been on the end of some very poor recruitment practices in my time, I thought it would be an interesting blog to post.

Why post this now, you ask? Well, we've just opened recruitment for our Stroud Baker position! Find out more about the vacancy here, and let us know if you're interested in applying to join our merry crowd of home bakers!

Driving isn't necessary when carrying out cake deliveries across Bristol and beyond. Our public transport network is fabulous and there's never a risk of the cake being damaged in transit. Stray elbows never happen!

You've seen photos of their cakes (which are totally legit, honest!) so why would you want a taste? Presentation is so much more important than taste - who cares if they can follow a recipe?!

Faces to a business, that doesn't matter in these days of exploding online commerce. You don't need to put that kind of self-indulgent crap on your blog, taking up the space potential photos of cake could have, and social media is dead now WhatsApp dominates, anyway. Don't post their faces about - your new recruits may be shy!

Before applicants can submit their expression of interest, we asked for three specific questions:

"Do you have a car?"
"Do you have more than five years baking experience?"
"Do you speak English?"

Complete waste of time. This didn't filter the candidate applications AT ALL and we ended up with a real mixed bag of wannabes. If something is essential to the role, why waste your time going into that much detail at the first point of the recruitment process?

No one likes being babysat - give them access to your orders, recipes and let them go. They're on their own from now on! Who needs someone checking in on them after a week or so of joining the team? They are freelance, they can cope, and they do have your number if they have any questions or emergencies, after all!

If you're recruiting (baker or other) this summer, let me know how you get on. I'd love to hear your feedback on our top 5 tips...

Louise
Owner at 280 Bakes

First, we announced an expansion in our business!
From today, we have bakers based in Stroud, Gloucestershire, who are delivering our cakes in the town. Find out more here, including how to join our team of bakers.

Then, we actually WENT to Stroud!
Given the main part of our birthday celebrations was the above announcement, we decided to surprise a business in Stroud with a cake. This is where Spacehoppers Co-working came in - we delivered a 280 Bakes branded cake (see the logo and BRIGHT PINK nature of said cake in the picture below!) to three entrepreneurs who were at the time working in the shared office space. A complete surprise to all and a welcome tea break from their hard work!

We chose Spacehoppers because we've had previous experience in co-working environments and we love the vibe from entrepreneurs who work in such places. A big 'HELLO AND THANKS' goes to Ben at BeKagool who tweeted us a photo of the cake being enjoyed in the office after we left.

Finally, we popped along to St Andrew's Park, Bristol...
We had to celebrate on 'home turf' too, of course! Word got to us that the Bristol Vegan Parents Group was meeting with the kids for a half term get-together, so we took them some complimentary cupcakes to sort out a snack for that lovely lot. The meeting point was "by the coffee hut in the centre", so cake and coffee worked out perfectly!

A fabulous day - we feel well and truly celebrated!

Thanks to all our willing cake eaters and our hard-working team. Here's to another successful year at 280 Bakes!

Louise
Owner of 280 Bakes

We were looking for some significant way of celebrating our second birthday (today, yay!), and thought that expansion into a third town would be perfect!

Our cakes are now available seven days a week in Portishead, Bristol and Stroud.

From today, we have home bakers ready to take your orders and bake a delicious cake for your office meeting, birthday party, or just a nice treat for tea. Just give us a call on 07835 882817 or contact us here and we'll deliver. Same day delivery is available, and of course, we have our fabulous vegan and gluten free recipes if you need them.

Want to work for us?
And, if you're a keen baker, we're expanding our baking network, so take a look at the details of our baker position - it could be for you!

We're excited to have you, Stroud - let's fill your town with home baked cake!

The Team @ 280 Bakes