Hi all! Well I am here with another blog, however this time I have a guest! Maxine Orriss from The Sweet Berry Bakery in Chelmsford! Maxine has kindly agreed to letting me let her talk about how she is developing her business, and leading up to that amazing cake from Amy and Ian's Wedding at Hedingham Castle last weekened!
 

Hi Dale,
Vicky George and I started The Sweet Berry Bakery in April 2014. We met through our children in the school playground and found that we both enjoyed baking. We had the offer of providing homemade bakes for a local cafe and that really gave us the impetus to form our business and gave us a good basis to explore flavours and develop our baking style.
 

We primarily provide bespoke celebration cakes to order, and also provide party catering for children’s parties. Our ethos is that our cakes and bakes should look and taste good. We try to steer away from excessive or extreme use of artificial colours and flavours, using natural flavourings where possible. One of our signature icings is 'Sweet Berry' which is gorgeously pink but from the natural juice of berries rather than by artificial means. We pride ourselves on a work ethic of attention to detail and a clean finish.

Our most exciting commissions are those where we are given full artistic license to interpret the client's chosen theme. This can be seen in the 'Vintage Suitcase' Cakes which reference the customer’s favourite colour and interest in furniture upholstery. Also 'The Goonies' cake which allowed us to re-create elements of the iconic movie. We particularly connect with the current trend for vintage inspired cakes and have created a number of 'Bunting' themed cakes for children.

Naturally, children's cakes form a large portion of the work that we have done and although we are asked for and have created many novelty cakes referencing a child's favourite toy or programme, those that we enjoy the most are those that are more personal to the child rather than a cartoon character. For example the 'Rainbow' cake for Grace and the 'Princess Cake' for Ruby.

Most recently, working on the wedding cake for Amy and Ian was again an ideal commission for a couple who allowed us to create a cake based on their theme of Vintage Lace and Pearls. This was an amazing opportunity to work on a show stopper of a cake that included a lot of the elements we love. The amazing venue and florist’s styling provided an ideal setting for the cake.

Vicky and I both work part-time and balance 'The Sweet Berry Bakery' with our day jobs and families. We are booked several weeks in advance and are pleased with how the business is developing. We have seen our client base grow through recommendation and word of mouth and many of our customers repeat book. We both dream of developing the business further and love the romance of working on Wedding Cakes. One day we aspire to open our own Sweet Berry Cake Parlour that encompasses all the elements of the business that we love.

The Sweet Berry Bakery is on Twitter and Facebook!
 

https://www.facebook.com/thesweetberrybakery?fref=ts
 

&
 

https://twitter.com/SweetBerryBaker
 

Thanks again Maxine for Sharing!