A Whole Orange

With bloggers from all over the country ascending on Christchurch and The Make Cafe this weekend, I felt it only fitting to get back to blogging (BTB) and I will write a short post each day this week, giving you a bit of insight into the world of "The Make Cafe"

Today did not start off as planned, I was meant to be in the shop but ended up at home with a bug. Fantastic staff meant that I did not have to drag myself into work and infect everyone! But it does mean a down day which is not great in the world of busyness!

Tonight I am on the mend so decided to have a go at a Whole Orange Cake. Well this involved boiling a Whole Orange in a pot for a Whole hour. Now sitting down with a cuppa and a cinnamon donut while we wait for the cake to bake - bliss!

I followed a recipe from one of my favourite BBC Good Food books, don't know about you but I trust certain recipe books more than others and this is one of them!

I have had a few conversations this week about copying things, somehow it seems to have come up at least 3 times over the last few days, so I though I would share my thoughts

Three Things:
1) Perspective  think about how many people live in this world and if you think that you are the only one person who thought of that idea, then go with it, stand your ground, however I think you may be surprised how similar we all are.
2) Creativity inspires creativity - this is kind of my motto, I use it in many things, and copying is one of them, sometimes, all we need is a bit of inspiration, (you can cleary see how Pinterest was started!)  If you are a no-brainer-copying-type of person this just won't work for you and you won't be able to think beyond what someone else has created. If you have creative spirit within you, you will find your own unique touch.
3) If you are the one being copied, don't waste your time grumbling about it, you are clearly a trend setter, so keep moving forwards and leave the others behind, focus your enegry on creating your next masterpiece!

Example
I view it a bit like recipes, like this Whole Orange Cake, I have already decided to put it in a loaf tin to see what occurs - lets hope magic!  Once I  decided on the loaf tin, I popped onto pinterest and typed in Orange Cake, and up came a load of images, I decided white icing with grated orange rind on top is what I like.
Point: - This recipe is basically a sponge with ground almond and a whole orange added, will I stick to the recipe ? probably not (most recipes have way too much sugar anyhow), was the Good Food magazine the first to think of an Orange Cake or a Sponge - well I'll leave that up to you.

The orange loaf is now looking rather dark on top, not sure the loaf tin was a great idea! But I will continue. Making all our food from yummy home made recipes is quite a challenge but one I totally enjoy, especially when you get the great comments back from customers and I get to do lots of experimenting and sampling!

If you have a well loved recipe do let us know, we would love to try it out in store.

So BTB here we come and lets see what tomorrow brings!