Читать книгу The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days: Recipes to make every day special - Tarek Malouf, Tarek Malouf - Страница 6

INTRODUCTION

At The Hummingbird Bakery we love to celebrate throughout the year. Whether our customers are looking for an impressive cake for a special occasion, cupcakes for a children’s birthday party or a treat for themselves or a friend, we hope our cakes help make their day a little bit special.

Although many of our customers don’t wait for a reason to come in and buy some cupcakes, more often than not people visit us to buy cakes for a friend or family member’s birthday, or to mark an event. After starting our Facebook page, we soon noticed that thousands of people were making our recipes at home and posting pictures of their results! We realised that home baking has become popular once again, bringing people together to celebrate. A cake is a wonderful, affordable way to toast good news or to cheer someone up, and Cake Days is about celebrating throughout the year, no matter how small the occasion.

At The Hummingbird Bakery we develop recipes that reflect how we feel as the year progresses and we always use seasonal ingredients. For us, the beginning of the year means preparing for Valentine’s Day, with lots of colourful cupcakes to chase away the cold and treats for couples to share. We sell rich, indulgent, chocolaty Daily Specials during these chilly days – little luxuries to keep people happy until spring arrives.

As the days get longer, our Daily Specials and creations become more floral and fruity, taking advantage of the seasonal goodies that are readily available at this time. Last spring we launched our flower blossom and floral cupcakes range, which our customers loved and are perfect as Mother’s Day presents. Our late-summer Specials let us be a little wilder with our imagination, using sweets, candies, sodas and other childhood favourites as our inspiration.

Birthdays and anniversaries often bring people into the bakeries and in this book you will find some easy cakes, cookies and whoopie pies that always create excitement at parties, plus some amazing layer cakes that many of our fans love to bake. Our three- or four-layer cakes take a little longer but are well worth the extra effort. But birthdays aren’t just about children and our cocktail cupcakes are delicious alcoholic indulgences for grown-ups.

When autumn arrives, we turn our attention to Halloween and Bonfire night. Since we first opened in 2002, Halloween has become a much-loved event in Britain and our themed cupcakes, cheesecakes and pumpkin goodies fly off the shelves! As Christmas approaches our offerings become more fragrant with nutmeg, cinnamon, nuts and chocolate. We enjoy decorating our cupcakes with handmade Christmas decorations, and love watching our customers buying boxes to give as festive gifts.

I hope you’ll enjoy baking from our brand new collection of Hummingbird recipes and take pleasure in sharing your delicious homemade cakes with friends and family.

Tarek Malouf