Our biggest corporate cake yet was baked this week for the Environment Agency's flood conference. The third annual Flood & Coast conference, organised by the Environment Agency, was held this week - and we were there! Our Louise was asked to make a cake in the shape of a remote controlled river monitoring boat, an "ARC-boat". It's a surf board-like craft worth over £16,000, used to measure speed and depth of rivers, and other data to aid flood management efforts. The Agency had sold it's 100th boat, which gave them a fabulous reason to celebrate. The cake was cut by the Chef Executive of the Environment Agency Sir James Bevan, the Director of Flood and Coastal Risk Management John Curtin, and Louise. Feedback on the cake, a chocolate sponge decorated in an eye-catching lime green to mimic a real ARC-boat, came... flooding in, post event on our Twitter. Thank you to the Environment Agency and in particular, Nick Everard, for the opportunity to bake for the occasion. We're more flood aware than we were before, that's for sure, and a small part of the flood family. The Team @ 280 Bakes
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The team will be out and about this season with our cakes - come and find us at the following local events!  Subject to change, but we'll be there if we most possibly can. We do take pre-orders, if you'd like anything in particular - save yourself delivery and enjoy the community event at the same time! The Team @ 280 Bakes
Our Louise has just come back from Costa Rica, bearing photos of cakes from the Latine American country. No tasters, but the photos look awesome! So, Costa Rica s not known for its cake - or really, even its food. You might think of beaches, wildlife, music, before you think of the food from that area, but there really is so much lovely goodness to try, and cake is no exception. Take a look at some of my photos below ... Let me know if you've ever baked these yourself! A true baker snaps photos of cake while she's on holiday...
Look out for more cakes from abroad, whenever one of our bakers goes on holiday. You can follow our 'cake holidays' on #280ontour on Twitter. Thanks for reading, Louise & Team.
Today we've invited Bohemian Hippy to to our blog. They're a team of Scottish vegans who help their customers live a 100% animal product free life, while helping out an animal charity too. And with 60% of our customers being vegan, we thought you might be interested. ----- Why Bohemian Hippy Merchandise Will Save Animal Lives This Veganuary As part of its commitment to the wonderful cause that is Veganuary, Bohemian Hippy, an online vegan merchandise stockist, has put to together a sample of its amazing and ethically sourced merchandise to help you do your bit in 2018. At Bohemian Hippy, we understand how important it is to wear your message about veganism and animal rights, so we created a shop where you can find not-for-profit ethical clothing with full vegan ink. Being vegan is a way of life and, as the good people over at Veganuary say, there are many reasons why people should go vegan in 2018. A way of living with compassion and care and a way of living that lets us eat all the delicious food that we like without having to harm or mistreat hundreds of thousands of innocent animals to do it. We’re very proud to be vegan here at Bohemian Hippy, and we’ll take any opportunity we get to shout about the benefits of being vegan for both humans and animals at any given opportunity, so we thank 280 Bakes for this amazing opportunity to shout about what we do! We believe that the only downside to being vegan is that there simply isn’t enough vegan merchandise to let us shout about it properly. At Bohemian Hippy however, we’re on a mission to change that. That’s why you will be met with a huge range of vegan merchandise when you visit the Bohemian Hippy webstore. We sell bespoke products, each featuring exclusive designs, slogans and patterns, so you can proudly display your vegan tendencies and look cool doing it.  Our t-shirts, sportswear, bags, and home products are sold not for profit. Instead of taking any money ourselves from the sale of our vegan merchandise UK, we’re putting it toward the foundation of Lotus Animal Sanctuary. Lotus Animal Sanctuary has been a dream of ours at Bohemian Hippy for some time now, and will let us improve the lives of many animals and teach adults and children alike that animal agriculture is not how they were meant to live. As well as providing a home for various animals, such as calves that are discarded by the cruel dairy industry, the Lotus Animal Sanctuary will give every visitor the chance to get up close and personal with these wonderful animals. That way, we can show the world how much love these animals can give, and that they are deserving of as much better quality of life. If you agree with us and want to help make Lotus Animal Sanctuary a reality and really get on board with our friends over at Veganuary, why not represent your beliefs with some of Bohemian Hippy’s vegan merchandise? Here’s just a few of our most popular products which we hope will allow your to burst with vegan pride in 2018.  Tote Shoulder Bag – Peace Justice Vegan – One size 42x38cm Our vegan tote bags are ideal for carrying the shopping, spare clothes or absolutely anything that you could need with you. Even better, our simple yet effective design jumps out from the bag’s front, leaving nobody in doubt that you are living your best meat and cruelty free life. Go you! £10.00  Vegan Athlete Performance Shirt One of the most frequent and irritating arguments against veganism is that humans are somehow supposed to eat meat to gain protein and stay strong. Of course, that’s just not the case, and you can show the world just how strong and healthy you are as you work out in our Vegan Athlete performance shirt. £19.99 Please note, this is just a wee sample of what we offer here at Bohemian Hippy. Feel free to explore our whole range online! Good luck for Veganuary people, we're right behind you! Be vegan, be proud. With love, Bohemian Hippy x ----- Thank you Bohemian Hippy. Best of luck with your animal sanctuary - we'll stop by if we're ever in Scotland! You can follow Bohemian Hippy on Twitter, or Facebook. Want to celebrate your new vegan wardrobe? A cake just *makes* a celebration, and we deliver vegan cakes all over Bristol and Portishead!
Until next time, Louise & Team 280 Bakes
City life can be frantic and stressful. This blog post shows you how Bristol living is made oh-so-much easier with 280 Bakes and some local business friends.Bristol Life Hack #1: Fuss Free Foodie  Not sure what to cook for dinner tonight? Wondering what spices to add to your soup? Want to know if shellfish are in season? The Fuss Free Foodie is here to help the good folk of Bristol get the answers to their foodie questions! Join the Fuss Free community with like minded foodies and enjoy the inspiration! If you don't fancy cooking and want to eat out you can also find restaurant reviews, from Bristol restaurants (including new areas like Whapping Wharf) highlights from new menu launches and food bloggers' favourite hangouts. What's new for the Fuss Free Foode team? They will running 'edible Christmas gifts' workshops in December, and going forward into the new year you can expect to see more organised to help you build your foodie repertoire and cooking skills. Their website launches in December so stay tuned to the Fuss Free Foodie on Facebook and Twitter to hear about it first! The Fuss Free Foodie: For time poor Bristolians who still enjoyed eating great food! Bristol Life Hack #2: We Caboodle  Caboodle is a new social enterprise set up by three BS3 mums – Isabel, Ellie F and Ellie B - who all struggled to find childcare to fit around their freelance work. After many meetings, involving kids, cafés and cake they saw an opportunity to develop a community business that would support other parents and carers in their situation, and Caboodle was born. Caboodle’s co-working with onsite crèche is the first of its kind in Bristol. There’s no commitment and you can book last minute – great for freelancers where work fluctuates and those working at home. The four and two hour pop-up sessions (lunch included) run every term-time Monday at Windmill Hill City Farm, Bedminster and have been met with a fantastic response.  “We Caboodle is a fantastic idea, executed well. It has meant that I can get a scheduled chunk of office time to finish of my projects, introduced me to a lovely group of people in similar circumstances to myself and allowed my two year old to try formal childcare. The crèche is superb as is the working environment (and the lunches too )” ~ Craig Andrews, Caboodler and Digital Editor at Shattered Glass. Book online or visit Caboodle's Facebook and Twitter to find out more! Caboodle have made it their "mission to provide a space for mums, dads and carers to work flexibly, supporting each other to have fulfilling careers and healthy family lives, whilst their children blossom in versatile, quality childcare.” Bristol Life Hack #3: Flatpack Monkey  Flatpack Monkey is a small business which offers a home, garden & workspace furniture assembly service throughout Bristol. The company assembles an extensive range of flatpack furniture from all leading high street & online retailers including Ikea, John Lewis, Next, Argos and many more. The team are friendly, fully insured and trained with the product knowledge and experience to professionally assemble your flatpack furniture to the highest quality of workmanship and to the manufactures specifications, offering an affordable and simple pricing structure with no call out fee; the price you see is the price you pay per item assembled. The company offers many services including a Pick & Deliver Service where we can now offer to pick your flatpack furniture items from your local Ikea Bristol and deliver your items straight for us to assemble. The benefit of this is that you don’t have to wait in for a delivery which can often be "silly hours" that don’t work around your plans for the day. We offer a discount for multiple items and have regular offers on our social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. If you don’t have the transport, time or patience, Flatpack Monkey offer an reliable, hassle-free flatpack furniture delivery and assembly service, with simple but competitive pricing. Bristol Life Hack #4: 280 Bakes  And finally, to us: 280 Bakes. We make Bristol life easier not only by baking home made cakes and delivering to your door, but by offering a same day service: CakeOD. The idea for CakeOD was inspired by some lovely, yet disorganised people we know. They'd forget it was their turn to bake on 'Cake Friday' in the office, birthdays of loved ones would slip their minds, and they'd not have noticed the note in their diary saying their bestie was popping over for a brew that afternoon. Cake was required, and fast! Popular misconceptions is that we included the 'OD' element to CakeOD as a nod to possible overdoses on baked goods, our vegan, gluten free and standard cakes are soooo tasty. In fact, the 'OD' refers to 'on demand' (think '4OD' for Channel 4's TV catch-up service). We deliver our customer favourites on demand - as long as you order by 12.30pm! Home made cakes, delivered same day across Bristol: As easy as that!  So there's our four life hacks for making living in Bristol that much easier. Have we missed anything or anyone who can do the same? Feel free to comment below to help out your fellow Bristolians! Here's to an easy life! The Team @ 280 Bakes
Halloween's come and gone - is your pumpkin still hanging around? Here are our three favourite ways to use up your pumpkin to avoid food waste. 1. Pumpkin Spice Cake
2. Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins  Friend of 280 Bakes, Louise G, sent us this recipe for Paleo Double Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins - sooo tasty! Remember, paleo (no flour or refined sugar) cakes don't rise as much, so full your muffin cases well. 1 cup creamy almond butter 1/2 cup pumpkin puree 1/4 cup cocoa powder 2 eggs 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanilla essence 1/2 cup coconut sugar 1/4 cup maple syrup (we used golden syrup - they're interchangeable here) 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (plus extra for topping) Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and line a 12 cupcake tin with paper cases. Mix all the ingredients bar the chocolate chips) in a bowl - should be a fairly thick batter. Fold in the chocolate chips and divide the mixture into the 12 cups. Sprinkle with extra chocolate chips, if desired - we like this touch! Bake for about 20 mins until the cakes are firm to the touch. Allow them to cool before serving. 3. Chocolate Pumpkin Brownies  No collection of sweet pumpkin recipes is complete without a recipe for brownies. Pumpkin is perfect for using in this kind of bake, and the brownies don't stick around long after they've baked - they're perfect snacks. This recipe uses less butter (replacing it with cream cheese) and recommends sprinkling them with walnuts, but we like them with almonds too. Don't let that pumpkin go to waste - get baking! The Team @ 280 Bakes
Halloween is one of our favourite times of year - there's so much creativity in cake baking on a spooky theme! Take a look at what went down at 280 Bakes this year - all in good natured spooky fun!  Even the office pup got into the spirit of things! Check out our recent blog post where our bakers shared their favourite scary movies of all time - have you seen them all yet?  Cakes and cupcakes, pumpkins and fancy dress - the team pulled out all the stops for our customers and party guests! Special thanks to Roberto for being such an awesome party co-host. <3 Roll on next year for more spooky fun! Louise 280 Bakes
At 280 Bakes, we love networking and supporting other small businesses in Bristol. Today we've invited #FabFudge, a small business raising money for a personal cause, to guest on our blog.  Thank you, Louise and team, we're excited to be here! Hi, my name is Jill Marriner. I would like to introduce you to our company, #FabFudge - a small, family-run business based in Hartcliffe, South Bristol creating small batch artisan fudge, including our ever-growing popular range of Vegan fudges. I have suffered from Multiple Sclerosis for over 15 years and am fundraising over $50,000 for stem cell replacement treatment (HSCT) in Moscow, as the procedure isn't yet fully available in the UK. Once the target has been reached – we're currently still £12000 short – we will be donating to AIMS (Auto Immune & Multiple Sclerosis), the only HSCT support charity in the UK, to help others during their journeys toward HSCT. The idea of #FabFudge started in 2016 when I started making fudge for family and friends, receiving lots of brilliant feedback. Many said the fudge was 'amazing' and that I should make it into a business to help with my fundraising. With the help of my husband, Tim (creative director and vegan fudge craftsman), and my son Josh, who runs the #FabFudge website and social media (among many duties!), we set to work trialing different recipes, selling at local markets. We now have a range of 40 flavours of fudge (plus winter boozy fudges & fudge Easter eggs!), including over 10 flavours of vegan fudge. We developed this secret recipe over a year, perfecting it slowly, ensuring a beautifully creamy texture. It has become a massive hit within the vegan community. Below are some photos of our vegan Oreo fudge, the chocolate orange variety, and on the right, our strawberry cream fudge. Yum!
We have regular sellout pitches at several local markets; regulars always know when we'll be back to supply their fudgy fix! We also sell online to individuals & independent vegan businesses, both in the UK and internationally. Our business is still home based, but is expanding rapidly and we hope to relocate in due course to a larger, dedicated facility (to save my husband constantly extending the house down the garden). Being a relatively small enterprise hasn't, however, stopped us from already fulfilling some very large wholesale orders! Find out more about #FabFudge and our quest to raise money for my treatment on our website, or you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Stay tuned for news of our Christmas specials! Thank you! Jill x Thank you Jill, great to learn a little more about #FabFudge. We wish you all the best for the future, and don't give up on your goals! We'll see you at Viva Vegan Festival in Bristol on 9th December! If you'd like to try some of Jill's fudge, we have free samples for the first three customers to order quoting 'FABFUDGE' when they order a cake or cupcakes from us! Offer ends Sunday 5th November. The Team @ 280 Bakes
Mental health awareness is not just for today, World Mental Health Day, when the world comes together to promote wellbeing. It's for every day. |
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David Buck's blog is also worth looking at - he's very open and honest, and it's a great blog if you want to understand the person behind a challenging mental health issue.
Sometimes, all that's needed is a chat. A cuppa and a slice of cake is an open doorway to gentle, meaningful discussion about how you or your friend/colleague/relative is feeling - just like what the Environment Agency in Bristol did today! They held a 'coffee and cake' (with our delicious Victoria Sponge - thanks guys!) natter to help spread the word that 'mental health' is not a dirty word.
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Why not post this image on the left on your Facebook today? We love it because the arrow cleverly points to your profile picture when you post it. Show you're listening!
Remember, it's ok NOT to be ok. Have some self-compassion and continue to breathe.
Be well,
The Team @ 280 Bakes
It may be July, with no Bank Holidays and the days are getting (minutely) shorter, but there's reason to kick back and relax, enjoying the taste of our Moor Beer Company cake launch!
We've teamed up with the brewers at Moor Beer Company and have created a delicious chocolate ale cake with their stout. We all love a boozy bake, and especially one as moist as this! The stout has berry and coffee scents, and tastes a little chocolate, which, coupled with our rich cocoa recipe, makes for a perfect chocolate cake.
Our gluten free and vegan customers won't miss out, either. Moor's stout is 100% animal product free, and our team have never been baking better gluten free cakes than we are right now.
Order a Moor Beer cake before Saturday 15th July
and receive 10% off!!!
The Moor Brewery was established in 1996 and they're now regarded as leaders in natural beer making. The brewery in Bristol is a short walk from Bristol Temple Meads, and it's well worth taking one of their factory tours. There's more than just stout to this company!
We're looking forward to bringing some chocolatey smiles to Bristol and Portishead - just drop us an email at 280bakes@gmail.com or send us a message via our contact page and we'll deliver!
The Team @ 280 Bakes and Moor Beer Company
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Welcome to the 280 Bakes blog! Most posts are by our team, but if you fancy guest blogging, give us a shout!
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