Purple rain fairy and homebaking

My my my what an interesting month we had!

First off there was Casual Day where some of our customers showed up in fancy dress. Our early morning coffee customers are already a nice chatty bunch - we always have such a nice buzz here in the mornings, everyone has become friends with everyone and it's one big group chatter, jokes and laughs.

So when Michelle from the Purple Shop showed up here as the Purple Rain Fairy she lifted the atmosphere to an almost festive feel.

I've been very busy in the kitchen experimenting with recipe's and teaching staff new skills.

We've added to our list of homemade products marshmallows. These are the softest melt in your mouth marshmallows you've ever had!

I'm making 2 different flavours, Almond & Cinnamon marshmallows and Rose Marshmallows.

Then we're finally baking all our bread ourselves - White bread, brown bread, burger buns, the ciabattas that I talked about in the previous post, seed loaf and the one I'm most proud of is my 100% wheat free Rye and seed bread.

Personally I've never been a fan of Rye bread. All the Rye bread I've tasted so far has been a heavy bread littered with Caraway seeds with a slightly sour taste. So I've never even considered trying to make something so yucky (to me). But I've had so many requests from customers for Rye bread that I started thinking about making a 100% Wheat-free Rye that weren't as heavy and had lots of flavour (without Caraway seeds!). I scoured the Internet looking for recipes and tips but you won't believe how hard it is to find a Rye bread recipe that doesn't have any wheat flour in the ingredients! So I studied all the recipes (wheat included) that I could find and made my own changes according to my requirements. For lightness I added cornstarch and oat bran to the rye flour and for flavour I added a mixture of seeds - sesame, poppy, sunflower and pumpkin seeds. So in order to be prepared for the great influx of customers expected for the famous Whale festival, I baked the first experiments last week on Wednesday and even if I must say so myself, it came out beautifully!

Now I love Rye bread - MY Rye bread :)

It was Whale festival this past weekend and it feels like every single person in the surrounding Western Cape came to Hermanus. We had such a good weekend - Saturday I had the most sales since we opened in October last year! How wonderfull it felt to be so busy again - I wish it could have lasted for more than just a weekend! Now we're back to relying on our locals in town to keep the restaurant afloat untill the next influx of tourists in December for high season. So thankyou to all my regulars for being here and helping to keep our heads above water :)