It’s romance season again – well, for some folks anyway! For me it is an excuse to try making some new cupcakes and decorating them with hearts and such.
Whist Nic was doing her usual magic creating vegan ‘cheeze’ and onion pasties, baking up some sos rolls and getting all the other cakes ready for the week, I took a few hours whilst we were closed to try a new recipe. Before I get onto that, feast your eyes on what Nic has added to ‘Cake Island’ this week:
These yummies will be available Weds 11am – 3pm and 6 – 9pm, Thurs 11am – 3pm and Sat 11am – 3pm
Today’s kitchen trial bake involved turning our usual vanilla cupcake recipe into Red Velvet cupcakes and making little vegan choccy hearts to go on top.
The ‘Moo Free’ choc was a total wipeout, it didn’t melt very nicely and I found it too sweet, it also had a weird aftertaste. Sad, because this choc was from advent calendars that came to us through the pantry and won’t last until next Christmas. I expect we’ll find another use for the chocs, but on their own they weren’t very nice at all.
Our vegan white choc coverture buttons worked a lot better, although they didn’t look so great on the white icing of course, so I had to switch to chocolate icing (the trauma) with red velvet dusting on top.
We’d had some electrical not-worky drama in the Grove area near the kitchen, so our lovely sparky Alex popped in and luckily it was a simple fix, and he was happy to take a cupcake as payment – what a legend. Bik was in doing maintenance so he got one cupcake that got squashed. We do spoil him.
So anyway, from this weekend we will have these little lovelies on sale and, if I can get timings worked out for collection, you may even have a limited chance to preorder some for the weekend before Valentine’s day! Join our mailing list for info nearer the time.
All proceeds from buying these tasty little numbers go towards the running costs of our community pantry, so these cupcakes show love in more ways than one.
You can also enjoy one of these yummy soups – green bean & tomato or leek and potato, both made using supermarket surplus and served with yummy bread also diverted from becoming waste. Our soup is pay-as-you-feel and you also have the option to pay one forward for somebody who needs a hot lunch.
Enjoy these pics – and come in and have the real thing! Lots of love to you from today’s kitchen crew – Nic, me (Jani) and Missy Boo – who was not allowed in the kitchen, of course, but was a Very Good Girl about it.
The Art House 
We have a problem
We had a lovely person who came to The Art House to use our Pantry for the first time last Thursday – they’d just arrived in the city from the West Country.
They split up with their family some time ago and are homeless.
We gave them paid-forward soup (and soft bread because most of their teeth were gone.) They were so happy to find somewhere safe and friendly to get warm for an hour or so. We are able to do this because of our one-off pay-it-forward pepes that cover our costs but especially because of our Patrons on Patreon who donate regular amounts to make sure the lights stay on.
But we have a problem. We may have to stop opening on Thursdays very soon as we just can’t afford to – rising costs of energy, staffing costs and lower city centre footfall make it difficult to fund the three daytimes and one evening we currently do if we rely solely of donations from pantry users (many of whom are struggling financially and don’t have much to spare) and folks dropping in for coffee.
So, if you are able to, would you consider becoming one of our Patrons, donating a regular amount each month to help us keep our doors open longer for people like the one above, who need us? You won’t see a more transparent and obvious use of your hard-earned cash being put to good use.
Find out more and join our Patreon community here
If you can’t afford to commit to a monthly amount, we understand – money is tight for a lot of people at the moment. Here are some other ways you can help:
Share this post on your social media – this increases our reach and lets new people know about what we do.
We need volunteers for the cafe and pantry on Wednesday daytimes and evenings, Thursday daytimes and Saturday daytimes – let us know you are interested and what days/times you can do here:
We also have other ways to donate and non-cash donations we need regularly.
Thanks for reading!