Welcome

Reaching the final of Masterchef 2007 was a rollercoaster of emotion, with huge highs and lows, but I loved every minute and learnt a huge amount. I owe a great deal to John and Gregg who had faith in my ability when I did not believe in myself. Since competing on the programme my life has changed considerably. I now write cookery columns for two magazines, give cookery demonstrations and am just working on my 13th cook book - unlucky number for some but not for me!!! I love all forms of country cooking, using seasonal and locally sourced produce. This blog is to enable me to share with you a few of my recipes and baking ideas. Enjoy Hannah xxxx

Monday 15 September 2008

We have returned from the show - completely exhausted but very, very proud of ourselves!!! Given this was our first ever show, it was a miracle how well we did. We arrived on Wednesday to be surrounded by very professional looking stalls - we were petrified! We decorated our tent with bunting and pretty tablecloths and looked like a WI stand - not very central London! Luckily our "Floral Fancies" stall was very popular - we sold 1,000 floral cupcakes, 1,000 brownies, 250 almond croissants, 675 mini foccacia, 300 loaves of bread and lots of tray bakes, ice cream and prosecco with violet liquor. By the end of Saturday we only had a few tray bakes left - everything else had been sold! My favourite were the marigold petal and sunflower petal breads, which looked so pretty and were very unusual. It will be a while before we have the energy to do another show but we were definitely glad to have taken part. The Inner Temple Gardens were stunning and on Thursday we were invited to the RHS Gala Dinner which was lovely (and even had edible flowers in the dessert).



11 comments:

Beth (jamandcream) said...

The stall looks fantastic. Glad it was so succesful :)

Rita said...

Congratulations Hannah!!! I wish I was there to see it. Wow, that was a LOT of cupcakes and brownies! Well done!!

David Hall said...

Highly impressive Hannah, well done

Cheers
David

Celia Hart said...

The work involved must have been colossal!!!!! Your stall must have been a magnet for everyone there!

Well done! Hope you're having a restful week – looks as if we're going to have some glorious autumnal weather :)

Celia

Shell said...

Wow, you sold a lot of your delicious goodies. Your stall and your food looks lovely.

Marie Rayner said...

What an impressive display you had there! I am in awe of the amounts and numbers, and of the prettiness of it all! Well done you guys!!! I'm not surprised it was a great success!

Hannah said...

Thank you all for your lovely comments - I am still recovering from the show! It is amazing to look at the photos of the table full and to know that by the end of each day it was completely empty!
Now just the book to finish writing and I will have my life back soon!
Hannah
xxx

Milhan said...

It looked just beautiful - congratulations on a successful show! And I think the name "Floral Fancies" was perfect :)

Sylvie said...

The stall looks wonderful Hannah. I would have happily stopped to spend some money!

Anonymous said...

Wow is all i can say,the cakes look absolutely amazing. I was thinking of you last nite,i was having a baking frenzy,in a couple of hours i made,chocolate biscuit cake,blueberry muffins,almond squares,3 loves of bread and apple tarts.I am getting married next week and wanted to have lots of treats for cups of tea.You deserve a long rest after all that work.

laughing magpie said...

We were at the show and Hannah's cakes and fizz saved the day when the queue for refreshments was too long to wait in! You can see what we had on our blogspot.