A busy summer of events in Kent

So that was a crazy summer!  It was great to be so busy but it meant I neglected my admin a bit and it’s been too long since I posted anything on here.  The problem with leaving it for so long is what to write about as there have been so many events and highlights, so I thought I would just cherry pick from the last few months rather than single out one event.  Photos are also a bit thin on the ground as I was so flat out I didn’t seem to often have the opportunity to take some.

There was the ridiculously hot weekend in June when I was trying to assemble a 3-tier chocolate wedding cake in 30 plus degrees.  It was adorned with mini farm animals and tractors in homage to the happy couple who are farmers.  Everything was in place when I left, but I later found out that the horse had gradually slid down the cake as the icing softened!  I also learned that the groom cut off a large slice with a sword and his new mother-in-law caught it before it fell to the ground, so perhaps it didn’t matter too much about the horse!

The same day I did a buffet for a friend’s son’s 21st.  Due to a miscommunication I hadn’t made a pudding and the friend thought I had.  We had to think on our feet.  She’d made some (delicious) orange and rosemary loaf cakes earlier in the day, so I sliced them up, poured over a bit of booze, topped them with bananas and raspberries and then made a sweetened whipped cream and yoghurt topping.  Hey presto, a rather delicious trifle and the guests were none the wiser!

I was asked to do a leavers’ lunch at Kings School for one of the houses in early July.  Such a special and historic location and always a privilege to go within the grounds.  It was great to see all the leavers in their finery and be a part of their last day.

Then there was the large wedding in Stalisfield.  It’s no exaggeration to say that pretty much everything went wrong for the bride and groom in the lead-up to their big day.  On multiple occasions I think it felt to them like it wouldn’t happen and even on the day itself they must’ve felt cursed when there was a complete power outage for a couple of hours!  What was so lovely though was how all their guests (170 in total I believe) really wanted them to have a special day and all rallied round to help and contribute in different ways.  For example there was only one salvageable layer of the wedding cake following the cake maker’s car accident (she was fine, the cake wasn’t) so a lot of the guests baked cakes and these were displayed together on a large table.  It was not only a lovely colourful display, but there was something for everyone and they even turned it into a competition.  I love things like that, where something positive comes from something negative.  It wasn’t the day they’d planned, but it was lovely and certainly memorable.  My contribution by the way was two-fold: I made canapés for them to have immediately after the ceremony and then I made the evening food which was a taco bar with all sorts of fillings and toppings.

I was involved with another large wedding at a beautiful home in Smarden.  It was another weekend-long celebration and my contributions were a large 3-flavour wedding cake which I delivered on the Saturday and then I returned on the Sunday with canapés and a cold buffet lunch for the remaining 65 guests.

A good friend who used to live nearby and used my services for many a party emigrated to Canada 5 years ago and so for obvious reasons that arrangement didn’t work any more!  She comes to the UK quite often and over the summer her mother hosted a large family get together at her home in Sussex.  My friend was keen to find a way for me to do the food, but we decided deepest Sussex was really a bit too far.  In the end we chose to go ahead anyway and we met half way at Clacket Lane services to do a handover!  Not very glamorous but it worked.

I could go on but it’s been a really long time since I posted any news on here, so I think I’d better leave it at that.