Work Experience at Chesters!

The beautiful langdale fells near Chesters

Monday to Friday this week has been work experience for pupils at my school and I decided I would like to go to the cafe and shop 'Chesters by the River' near Ambleside.Trust me to pick somewhere awkward in terms of location from where I live, it's quite a bit further than the rest of my year's placements, but I've always loved going there with my family. Cafe and shop work is something they sadly don't teach in schools which is a real shame because it's a lot different from all of the subjects they teach (all the subjects I've taken for my GCSEs anyway). It's always been a place I've loved to visit (you should definitely stop by if you get the chance) because it has such a friendly atmosphere, the shop feels really open and light as well as being full of a variety of things to buy. You would only have to walk into the cafe to understand why it's usually heaving! It has generous portions of extremely yummy cakes which you would have to do very well to ignore. It has a pizza oven serving crispy pizzas and flat breads, the chefs even let me make some for my lunchs, as well as exciting salads and much more. I suggest arriving with an empty stomach!

My crispy margarita pizza! 

just an itsy bitsy peak at some of the cakes

My week at Chesters was brilliant and I learnt so much that I now have a headache and feel my brain shall soon explode. It's worth it but I feel tomorrow may be a power nap day, I truly don't understand how all the fantastic staff there never stop. They couldn't have been more friendly and made me feel more welcome, I'm surprised they don't all have sore mouths from their permanent smiles and collapse from exhaustion from their rushing around.

the thank you card

To thank all the shop staff, the cafe servers, chefs and bakers I made a card using their logo (Chester the dog) their moto/ slogan (bad dog no biscuit) and, of course, cake. I also got some flowers and chocolate since I thought all the staff must be sick of cake so bad idea to bake one!
At the end of the day when Ashley (the amazing manager who organised all this, she should be called amazing Ash!) had filled in the extensive forms for my school I was given presents too! (much to my suprise since they were the ones who put up with me all week). I was given a chester top, apron and beaker all with the logo on from the shop, five cakes from the cafe staff, a sourdough starter from the kitchen (I'll have to start trying out some sourdough recipes if I manage to keep her alive, she's called Susan the sourdough starter) and a Saturday job offer.

My unexpected gifts

I hope you had a nice week too and take a visit to Chesters if you happen to be in the Lakes! 

Dad's Birthday

First of all I'm going to tell you as far as I'm aware Mother's day is certainly not on march 10th and is really next weekend (this is not my excuse for forgetting to buy anything) so this blog won't be on Mother's day at all, sorry. This weekend has been my Dad's Birthday but he was away so we celebrated it yesterday, meaning we already had a birthday cake in the house and there was no need for a Mother's day cake (one of the reasons why Mother's day is next weekend). 

So this is the monster Birthday cake! I got the recipe from 'The Great British Bake Off Showstoppers' but I won't be typing out the recipe, sorry, because it would take up a lot of time and space. 
It may just look like an ordinary cake smothered in butter icing from the badly taken photograph, and this is partly true; it is smothered in butter icing, but this is no ordinary cake. Underneath the mountains of butter icing is a almond meringue sandwiched with butter cream to a genoese orange flavoured sponged, sandwiched to another meringue, sandwiched to another layer of sponge covered in almond praline and orange flavoured butter cream and topped with more almond praline. Wow. Weight watchers and the ambulance are now on speed dial and if no other blogs are written you may presume I have died of heart disease. I have to say though, it tastes good.

On to the presents! Well Dad being the modest, practical and not really having an interest in the luxuries of life is really quite hard to buy for. We eventually decided to stick with the traditional annual T-shirt (from Boden) a hankie for each day of the week (from not on the high street, great gift site!)and Mumford and Sons older album, 'sigh no more' (mainly because I wanted it).


I don't think we did too badly this year and finally I just thought I share the Birthday card we bought him. It's not particularly Birthday related but the dog reminded me of one of our three dogs and I loved the illustration, extremely cute indeed! I hope if you decided to be Orthodox and celebrate Mother's day today you had a very happy day too. 

Guess who met the fabulous baker brothers?

The answer to the above question is me, not once but three times in fact!  

All of yesterday afternoon was spent in my kitchen making and baking to enter the Kendal festival of food competitions. After many spillages of food dye, a few minor disaster and lots of taste testing I managed to finish my entries. They had a theme this year from the sponsor which was 'Herdy, the face of the lake district', a really cute cartoon herdwick sheep. They had two categories for this: children's decorated cupcakes and a novelty cake decorated with a herdy theme. I entered for the cupcakes with my Guinness cupcakes but changed the Guinness to a different stout from my town's brewing company which made them taste even nicer than last time. I managed to come first in the cupcake competition  with my knitting themed cakes and a seal of approval from the judges (Channel 4 Fabulous baker Brothers themselves!).  

Here's a picture of the novelty cake winner which I thought was amazing but also very clever.

The other competition I entered was the multi-grain bread competition, I entered pecan and maple syrup bread and managed to come third. I've come to the conclusion that I'm more pleased with this result than the cupcakes because this round had more entries, was more technical, against adults and Tom Herert is a professional baker so I'm guessing knows a whole heap about bread.
We made the bread from one of our many cook books the other week and the flavors go really well together, when my Mum suggested it I was a bit sceptical about it being to sweet but it tastes just great.

Maple and Pecan Bread from 'cakes and bakes from my mother's kitchen' by Linda Collister 

Makes 2 loaves

• 350 grams of strong wholemeal bread flour
• 350 grams of strong white bread flour 
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 7 grams of dried yeast
• 375 ml of warm water
• 150 grams of maple syrup
• 200 grams of pecans (we found this too many last time so used 150 grams this time)

1. Mix the flours salt and yeast in a large mixing bowl and make a well n the centre.
2. Pour in the warm water and maple syrup and mix until you have a soft, but not sticky, dough.
3. If the dough is too dry add a little bit of water, if too soft add a teaspoon of flour.
4. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes until it becomes elastic before returning to a clean oiled bowl. Cover with cling film and leave to rise for 1 1/2 hours.
5. Oil two loaf tins, take the dough out and punch the air out of it, divide into two and place into tins. Cover loosely with oiled clingfilm again and leave for another hour, or until double in size (this bread is a labour of love!).
6. Preheat the oven to 200oC/ 400oF (gas mark 6.
7. Take off the clingfilm and bake for 30-35 minutes, it should make a hollow sound when tapped and be brown on the top.
8. Leave to cool on a wire rack and enjoy within four days.

The rest of the festival was great fun too, there was lots of made in Cumbria produce stands and cooking demonstrations, even a farm animal tent. We met the baker brothers in waterstones before meeting them a second time for their demonstration, which they posted on twitter. I got to hold the dish they prepared in the front which was 'gunpowder lamb with carrot and pepper salad on roti), 'twas very nom. Lastly I met them when they presented the 5 competition winners and got my picture taken with a signed copy of their new book, a lakeland voucher and a herdy apron. 

the farm animal tent

My signed book

I hope you had a good weekend too and I've inspired you to read up on the fabulous baker brothers if you've never heard of them, I can strongly recommend their new book!