300 Hits and Counting

We are heading into another busy weekend with our second farmers market on Sunday. Hopefully it will go as well as the first one did and we have the added bonus of being able to sell our sweet things as well.

It's still quite a shock to see how much Woottonians love those sweet things - we are making about 3 kilo's a day of brownies at the moment on top of everything else, ladies on mobility scooters, children getting off the school bus, local ramblers having a well earned treat - everyone is after them!

Did you know that the first person to put a recipe for "brownies" in a cookbook was Fanny Farmer ( yes really!). It was in the 1896 edition of The Boston Cooking School Cookbook but that recipe contained no chocolate - that wouldn't have worked with our customers now would it?

One legend about the creation of brownies is of Bertha Palmer, a prominent Chicago socialite whose husband owned the Palmer House Hotel. In 1893 Palmer asked a pastry chef for a dessert suitable for ladies attending the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. She requested a cake-like confection smaller than a piece of cake that could be included in boxed lunches. The result was the Palmer House Brownie with walnuts and an apricot glaze. The modern Palmer House Hotel serves a dessert to patrons made from the same recipe. By 1907 the brownie was well established as we now know it - the year before The Keeps built our house I wonder if they had heard of brownies?

We were also really pleased this week to see our website reaching its 300th hit - with over 50 just this week. We have ventured onto Twitter, as well, to market ourselves even more and we had a great friend come to take some very professional photographs of our wares which will help no end.

Cathryn is back driving short distances and so assistance with deliveries comes in very handy and means Andrew can continue baking without interruption. This morning we delivered to 3 local schools, the village shop, a business in Luton care of a friend in the village who works there and a local photography business with sandwiches for their models. We are getting more orders for people's workplaces too which is great - a selection of cakes for one lady - birthday cakes for another's son - pasties and manwiches (bacon, egg and sausage bap) for the local builders. The overwhelming support is humbling - unfortunately, though we need to stop eating the produce ourselves as are now regular attendees of the new Slimming World Group in the village!!!

We hope to see you at Marston Vale Forest Centre Farmers Market this Sunday 10am til 3pm

https://twitter.com/BreadKeeley

http://andrewwatters.wix.com/keeley-house-bakery

Photographs by Stavros Constantino